Himalayan Surface Rupturing Earthquakes

The Himalayan range is affected by very strong, devastating earthquakes that have been mentioned in historical chronicles on numerous occasions since the medieval period. Strong devastating earthquakes affect the entire Himalayan range. These earthquakes result from plate tectonics, and more specifically from the India–Asia convergence. On the morning of October 8, 2005, a very strong earthquake devastated Pakistani Kashmir and in particular the city of Muzaffarabad. This event, of magnitude 7.6, left 80,000 people dead. It is the first of the large Himalayan earthquakes studied jointly by modern techniques of seismology and satellite imagery. Extensive field surveys along the meso-seismal traces of the strongest instrumental and historical earthquakes helped discover remnants of their surface ruptures. Since then, more than 27 paleoseismological trench sites have been excavated along the Himalayan arc.