Megathrust earthquake: Ticking time bomb threatening Bangladesh and Southern Asia

Asia: A massive earthquake called an “active megathrust fault” is posing a huge threat to Bangladesh. The earthquake which might have a devastating effect as the 2011 quake that hit Japan which took about 16,000 lives also poses a real threat to southern Asia if recent modelling is correct.

According to studies, researchers fear, the discovery of the hidden geographic fault lurking under south Asia the most densely populated place on earth could unleash a magnitude 9.0 quake, putting up to about 140 million people at risk.

The study which took more than a decade discovered the massive fault under Bangladesh, parts of India and Myanmar.
The research, which is the first to use GPS data collected from Bangladeshi tracking stations, indicated the northeastern corner of the Indian subcontinent is on a collision course with Asia.

The tectonic plates far under the earth’s surface are covered in layers of sediment more than 20m thick, and the study models suggest at the upper levels they are stuck in a pile-up, one thrusting under the other in a ‘megathrust’ which may have been under stress for more than 400 years.

Researchers believe the area is spring-loaded to collapse and rupture under the strain. But they have no idea when, or if, the fault will give way and trigger a 8.2 to 9.0 megaquake as the discovery is only recent.
Study co-author Michael Steckler, a geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York City said in an article on the university website

“We don’t know if it’s tomorrow or if it’s not going to be for another 500 years,” 

“We don’t know how long it will take to build up steam, because we don’t know how long it was since the last one. But we can definitely see it building.”

According to the research team, they estimated that about 140 million people that live within 100km of the fault, including about 17 million in the area around low-lying Dhaka region of Bangladesh, which according to Steckler, already has issues with poor construction, making it highly at risk of building collapse should an quake of large magnitude hit the region.

Also overcrowding would make it hard to rescue survivors in the event of an earthquake.

“Right now, the streets are clogged with traffic such that it’s impossible to drive around Dhaka on a normal day,” Steckler said.

“If you fill the streets with debris, it’s really going to be impossible to get supplies and rescue equipment and things like that around,” Steckler said.

The research team is now building a more detailed map of the shape of the fault, as well as looking at historical tsunami data to understand how often megathrust earthquakes occur, Steckler said.

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