The 1905 Kangra earthquake occurred in the

Kangra Valley Kangra Valley is a river valley situated in the Western Himalayas.Kangra district Kangra district is the most populous district of Himachal Pradesh, India. Dharamshala is the administrative headquarters of the district. History Kangra is known for having one of the oldest serving Royal Dynasty in the world, the Katoch of ...

of the

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...

, in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

on 4 April 1905. The earthquake measured 7.8 on the

surface-wave magnitude The surface wave magnitude (M_s) scale is one of the magnitude scales used in seismology to describe the size of an earthquake. It is based on measurements of Rayleigh surface waves that travel along the uppermost layers of the Earth. This mag ...

scale and killed more than 20,000 people. Apart from this, most buildings in the towns of Kangra,

Mcleodganj McLeod Ganj or McLeodganj (pronounced ) is a suburb of Dharamshala, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India. It is known as "Little Lhasa" or "Dhasa" as the Tibetan government-in-exile is headquartered here and there is a significant p ...

and

Dharamshala Dharamshala (, ; also spelled Dharamsala) is a town in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. It serves as the winter capital of the state and the administrative headquarters of the Kangra district since 1855. The town also hosts the Tibeta ...

were destroyed. The earthquake also had a widespread impact in Jammu and Kashmir particularly in the densely populated Kashmir valley. A total of 7,000 to 8,000 people were killed in Jammu and Kashmir with 4,000 to 5,000 deaths occurring in the Kashmir valley. Widespread structural damage was reported across Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttrakhand.

Background

The calculated

epicenter The epicenter (), epicentre, or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Determination The primary purpose of a ...

of the earthquake lies within the zone of thrusts along the front of the Himalayas formed by the continuing collision of the

Indian plate The Indian plate (or India plate) is or was a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana an ...

into the Eurasian plate. Underthrusting of the Indian subcontinent beneath Tibet along a 2,500 km long convergent boundary known as the

Main Himalayan Thrust The Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) is a décollement under the Himalaya Range. This thrust fault follows a northwest-southeast strike, reminiscent of an arc, and gently dips about 10 degrees towards the north, beneath the region. It is the large ...

has resulted in the uplifting of the overriding Eurasian plate, thus creating the long mountain range parallel to the convergent zone.

Earthquake characteristics

The magnitude 7.8–7.9 earthquake struck the western Himalaya in the state of Himachal Pradesh at an estimated depth of 6 km along a very shallow dipping thrust fault, likely on the

detachment. The rupture area is calculated at 280 km × 80 km. The rupture did not reach the surface, therefore, is considered a

blind thrust earthquake A blind thrust earthquake occurs along a thrust fault that does not show signs on the Earth's surface, hence the designation "blind". Such faults, being invisible at the surface, have not been mapped by standard surface geological mapping. Sometim ...

. A more recent study in 2005 estimated the rupture zone at 110 km × 55 km while still not breaking the surface.

Damage

The earthquake reached its peak Rossi–Forel intensity of X in Kangra. About 150 km away from this zone to the southeast, an area of increased intensity reaching VIII was recorded. This unusually high intensity away from the earthquake in the Indo-Gangetic Plain included the cities

Dehradun Dehradun (), also known as Dehra Doon, is the winter capital and the List of cities in Uttarakhand by population, most populous city of the Indian state of Uttarakhand. It is the administrative headquarters of the eponymous Dehradun district, d ...

and

Saharanpur Saharanpur is a city and a Municipal corporation (India), municipal corporation in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is also the public administration, administrative headquarters of Saharanpur district. Saharanpur city's name was given after the Sain ...

. It was felt VII in towns like

Kasauli Kasauli is a town and cantonment, located in the Solan district of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The cantonment was established by the British Raj in 1842 as a Colonial hill station,Sharma, Ambika"Architecture of Kasauli churches" ''The ...

, Bilaspur, Chamba, and

Lahore Lahore ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is the List of cities in Pakistan by population, second-largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi, and ...

. As many as 100,000 buildings were reported to have been demolished by the earthquake. At least 20,000 people are estimated to have been killed and 53,000 domestic animals were also lost. There was also major damage to the network of hillside aqueducts that fed water to the affected area. The total cost of recovering from the effects of the earthquake was calculated at 2.9 million (1905) rupees.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:1905 Kangra Earthquake 1905 Kangra Kangra Earthquake, 1905 Kangra district History of Himachal Pradesh Disasters in Himachal Pradesh 1905 earthquakes April 1905 Buried rupture earthquakes 1905 disasters in India

Background

Earthquake characteristics

Damage

See also

References

Further reading

External links