Earthquake — India/Myanmar Border

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Dangerous (shallow ?) earthquake near the India / Myanmar border (Manipur province)

Last update: July 14, 2012 at 10:03 pm by By

Earthquake overview : A dangerous extremely shallow strong earthquake occurred at 01:25 AM approx. 20 km from the Myanmar border in India. What looks like a moderate earthquake becomes dangerous because of the shallow depth of the hypocenter (6,5 km) reported by USGS.

Most important Earthquake Data:
Magnitude : M 5,6 (USGS), M5,5 (EMSC and GFZ) and M5,3 (CENC)
UTC Time : Saturday, July 14, 2012 at 19:55:12 UTC
Local time at epicenter : Sunday, July 15, 2012 at 01:25:12 AM at epicenter
Depth (Hypocenter) :
Geo-location(s) :
24 km (14 miles) S of Phek, India
43 km (26 miles) ESE of Kohima, India
57 km (35 miles) S of Zunheboto, India

Update : Phek, the village at 24 km from the epicenter has a population of 12863 (last census). One of the greatest dangers in the area will be the potential for landslides. Depending on the weather and the deforestation, which is common in India, landslides can easily occur. The city of Kohima has endured a MMI V , moderate shaking and counts 92000 people (we do not think however that major damage has occurred in this city). We have almost no data from the Myanmar side of the border, but we know that the area is very sparsely populated.

Update : Due to the darkness and the kind of terrain (very hilly forested area) it will take several hours before we expect to hear more news.

Update : 66000 people are living in the area which earthquake-report.com calls at risk, mainly because of the building methods in the area (a lot of brick and adobe houses) and because of the occurrence of the shaking in the middle of the night. A lot of the houses are also in wood and bamboo and can resist strong shaking.

Update : Based on the USGS data (M5,6 @ 6,5 km depth), 19000 people will have experienced a MMI VII very strong shaking. 91000 people a strong shaking.

Update : If the CENC and USGS data are right (even with the lower CENC Magnitude), we call an area of 20 km around the epicenter as highly vulnerable for damage and injuries.

Update : We did hesitate to start up an in-depth earthquake report because of the confusing data. A 6 km deep earthquake (USGS and CENC) and 40 to 45 km (GFZ and EMSC) can be related to “very dangerous” to “harmless)

This is what we wrote in our daily (major) earthquake overview : What looks like a moderate earthquake becomes dangerous because of the shallow depth of the hypocenter (6,5 km) reported by USGS. This depth is preliminary and has been contradicted by GFZ and EMSC who are stating an intermediate depth of 45 and 60 km. We have set the color of this earthquake to Orange because of this uncertainty. It would be green by 60 km and red by 6,5 km. The coming hours will tell us more about this! Indian seismologic agency has no live Internet data.
CENC, The Chinese seismological agency who is very reliable in this area reports a M5,3 at a depth of 6 km. If CENC data are correct, we will have to maintain the orange color of moderately dangerous.

for more information and updates, go to:    http://earthquake-report.com/2012/07/14/dangerous-shallow-earthquake-near-the-india-myanmar-border-manipur-province/