8 ms·

Nepal earthquake, magnitude 7.3, strikes near Everest

105 points by illuminek 11y ago

illuminek 11y ago
Aftershocks felt, there were at least 2. I ll call them major ones. I was sitting on 4th floor. It felt very strong.
- spacefight 11y ago
  Yes, 5.6 and 6.3 after 7.4. Source: https://twitter.com/USGSBigQuakes https://twitter.com/USGSBigQuakes
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  What's your location? Distance from initial epicenter?
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- peteretep 11y ago
  It would be worse to happen in a few years when the relief teams have left the country and there's been significant rebuilding.
- darrhiggs 11y ago
  It seems as though there is precedence, especially in Nepal, as earthquakes tend to shift stress along the fault lines[0]. [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32472310 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32472310
chrisra 11y ago
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is 2.511 times bigger than a magnitude 7.4 earthquake on a seismogram, but is 3.981 times stronger (energy release). via http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php
- illuminek 11y ago
  I did not quite understand "3.981 times stronger (energy release)", but god bless everyone.
  - Swizec 11y ago
    The Richter scale is exponential. According to chrisra a 7.8 earthquake release almost 4x the energy of a 7.4 quake. I didn't run the numbers, but it seems plausible the difference would be that big. According to Wikipedia[1] a 7.5 quake releases 11 petajoules of energy, while a 7.8 quake release 32 petajoules. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Example...
    - nixy 11y ago
      This is something that's always bothered me. The Richter scale is not, for normal people like myself, a good earthquake magnitude indicator. I always have trouble grasping that 7.5 and 7.8 are so far apart in terms of severity since my mind is set to find a .3 difference negligible. I would like to have a metric measurement of earthquakes that would allow me to more quickly understand the scale and size of a quake. Edit: The difference between a 8.6 one and a 8.7 one is huge. The difference is as big as the difference between 0.0 and 8.35, in megatons at least.
      - nabaraz 11y ago
        Using Charles Richter's formula Magnitude of Earthquake M = log I / S (where I is the intensity of the earthquake taken 100km from epicenter, S is the intensity of a standard earthquake) First earthquake 7.8 = log I1 / S Second earthquake 7.1 = log I2 / S If we solve this for I1/I2, we get 10 ^ 1.10 ~ 12.5 > The intensity of first earthquake was 12.5 times as intense as the later earthquake.
      - NZ_Matt 11y ago
        The richter scale in general is not a good indicator of the destructiveness of an earthquake. You need to consider the location of the epicenter and the depth of the quake before coming to any sort of conclusion. I experienced this first hand here in Christchurch, NZ. We had a 7.1M quake and then a 6.3M aftershock 6 months later. Despite being almost an entire magnitude smaller the 6.3M aftershock was 10x more destructive. This was primarily because the epicenter of the 6.3M quake was 40km closer to the city and some unusually high verticle accelerations caused by the strike slip motion of the fault and the local geography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake The Mercalli Intensity Scale was developed to give a better indicator of the actual effect to people on the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale
samikc 11y ago
Writing this from Kolkata (India). We were asked to evacuate the office building, as it was shaking. Just got an all clear to get back in. God bless everyone.
dschiptsov 11y ago
That could be quite bad, because vast majority of houses in the area of Namche Bazaar has been built without steel-and-concrete reinforcement - just stones and cement, due to lack of motorable roads in Sulukhumbu region to supply steel and other building materials.
eliaspro 11y ago
Please help the OSM HOT [1] team to map the regions struck by the earthquake. Without proper/up-to-date maps, coordinating emergency efforts is hardly possible. [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_earthquake http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_earthquake
- legulere 11y ago
  Please get used to how OSM works before starting to map. There has been lots of bad data added by new people to OSM in Nepal recently. Cleaning up may be more work than adding new.
nabaraz 11y ago
Can't believe another earthquake has hit Nepal and it's even worse. Please pray for the people of Nepal and donate. A little can make all the difference.
frabcus 11y ago
Lots of Nepal Earthquake datasets (including map of new quake) on the Humanitarian Data Exchange: https://data.hdx.rwlabs.org/nepal-earthquake https://data.hdx.rwlabs.org/nepal-earthquake

105 points by illuminek 11y ago

illuminek 11y ago

Aftershocks felt, there were at least 2. I ll call them major ones. I was sitting on 4th floor. It felt very strong.

spacefight 11y ago
Yes, 5.6 and 6.3 after 7.4. Source: https://twitter.com/USGSBigQuakes https://twitter.com/USGSBigQuakes
dredmorbius 11y ago
What's your location? Distance from initial epicenter?

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
peteretep 11y ago
It would be worse to happen in a few years when the relief teams have left the country and there's been significant rebuilding.
darrhiggs 11y ago
It seems as though there is precedence, especially in Nepal, as earthquakes tend to shift stress along the fault lines[0]. [0] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32472310 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32472310

chrisra 11y ago

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is 2.511 times bigger than a magnitude 7.4 earthquake on a seismogram, but is 3.981 times stronger (energy release). via http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/calculator.php

illuminek 11y ago
I did not quite understand "3.981 times stronger (energy release)", but god bless everyone.
- Swizec 11y ago
  The Richter scale is exponential. According to chrisra a 7.8 earthquake release almost 4x the energy of a 7.4 quake. I didn't run the numbers, but it seems plausible the difference would be that big. According to Wikipedia[1] a 7.5 quake releases 11 petajoules of energy, while a 7.8 quake release 32 petajoules. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Example...
  - nixy 11y ago
    This is something that's always bothered me. The Richter scale is not, for normal people like myself, a good earthquake magnitude indicator. I always have trouble grasping that 7.5 and 7.8 are so far apart in terms of severity since my mind is set to find a .3 difference negligible. I would like to have a metric measurement of earthquakes that would allow me to more quickly understand the scale and size of a quake. Edit: The difference between a 8.6 one and a 8.7 one is huge. The difference is as big as the difference between 0.0 and 8.35, in megatons at least.
    - nabaraz 11y ago
      Using Charles Richter's formula Magnitude of Earthquake M = log I / S (where I is the intensity of the earthquake taken 100km from epicenter, S is the intensity of a standard earthquake) First earthquake 7.8 = log I1 / S Second earthquake 7.1 = log I2 / S If we solve this for I1/I2, we get 10 ^ 1.10 ~ 12.5 > The intensity of first earthquake was 12.5 times as intense as the later earthquake.
    - NZ_Matt 11y ago
      The richter scale in general is not a good indicator of the destructiveness of an earthquake. You need to consider the location of the epicenter and the depth of the quake before coming to any sort of conclusion. I experienced this first hand here in Christchurch, NZ. We had a 7.1M quake and then a 6.3M aftershock 6 months later. Despite being almost an entire magnitude smaller the 6.3M aftershock was 10x more destructive. This was primarily because the epicenter of the 6.3M quake was 40km closer to the city and some unusually high verticle accelerations caused by the strike slip motion of the fault and the local geography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake The Mercalli Intensity Scale was developed to give a better indicator of the actual effect to people on the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale

samikc 11y ago

Writing this from Kolkata (India). We were asked to evacuate the office building, as it was shaking. Just got an all clear to get back in. God bless everyone.

dschiptsov 11y ago

That could be quite bad, because vast majority of houses in the area of Namche Bazaar has been built without steel-and-concrete reinforcement - just stones and cement, due to lack of motorable roads in Sulukhumbu region to supply steel and other building materials.

eliaspro 11y ago

Please help the OSM HOT [1] team to map the regions struck by the earthquake. Without proper/up-to-date maps, coordinating emergency efforts is hardly possible. [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_earthquake http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2015_Nepal_earthquake

legulere 11y ago
Please get used to how OSM works before starting to map. There has been lots of bad data added by new people to OSM in Nepal recently. Cleaning up may be more work than adding new.

nabaraz 11y ago

Can't believe another earthquake has hit Nepal and it's even worse. Please pray for the people of Nepal and donate. A little can make all the difference.

frabcus 11y ago

Lots of Nepal Earthquake datasets (including map of new quake) on the Humanitarian Data Exchange: https://data.hdx.rwlabs.org/nepal-earthquake https://data.hdx.rwlabs.org/nepal-earthquake