WARNING: Massive Earthquake Likely To Hit North India, Himalayan Region.

If you thought the earthquakes in Nepal (May 2015), and Manipur (Jan 2016) were destructive, Beware! because now, a bigger, earthquake is expected to hit North India and other parts of Himalayan region.

According to the ToI, MHA's National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), in an assessment following the Nepal quake, has warned of enhanced risk around the "ring of fire garlanding the entire north India especially the mountains". 

The report quoted the Ministry of Home Affairs’ (MHA’s) disaster management experts as saying that quakes with a higher intensity than the one which struck Manipur on Monday are likely to hit the Himalayan region in future. 

The tectonic shift in this region has already caused a series of high-magnitude earthquakes, with Manipur (6.7, Jan 2016), Nepal (7.3, May 2015) and Sikkim 6.9 (2011), in the past few years. This has also led to conditions that might cause multiple huge earthquakes in the coming future.

According to the report, seismologist Roger Bilham from the University of Colorado said: "The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude. And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes."

NIDM director Santosh Kumar, in a conversation with TOI said that the interconnected plates across Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and India pose a bigger danger to the region. He also predicted a disaster of bigger magnitude that awaits hill states and parts of Bihar, UP and even Delhi. All these states fall under the second worst seismic Zone IV classification, while the North-East and other hill states fall under severe seismic Zone V.

Kumar also said the Centre has taken measures to sensitise the governments so that all hill states adopt a common building code, which is different from the rest of India.