A magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck the province at 9:05 am on January 7. 95 people died in this, while 130 people were injured. It was so powerful that its tremors were felt even in India, 200 kilometers away. Impact of earthquake in Nepal, Bhutan and also in Sikkim and Uttarakhand of India.
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Earthquakes are occurring daily in India in 2025. In the last 7 days, earthquake tremors have been felt in 9 states of the country. What happened in the new year that earthquakes started occurring daily and is this a warning of a major earthquake? Will know in today’s explainer…
Question-1: Where did earthquakes occur in India every day in the New Year? answer: Earthquakes occurred in 9 states of India in the first 7 days of the new year. Understand from this timeline made on the basis of National Center for Seismology (NCS) and media reports…
- 1 January: An earthquake of 3.2 magnitude occurred in Kutch, Gujarat. The tremors were felt at 10:24 am. The epicenter of this earthquake was 23 kilometers away from Bhachau.
- 2 January: An earthquake of 3.9 magnitude hit western and south-western areas of Sikkim. Light tremors were felt. The epicenter of the earthquake was about 264 kilometers away from Tadong town in Sikkim.
- 3 January: An earthquake of 5.1 magnitude occurred in Guwahati, the capital of Assam. Its center was at a depth of 127 kilometers from the ground in Myanmar. This earthquake occurred at 10:02 am.
- 4th January: Another earthquake occurred in Kutch, whose magnitude was 3.6. The earthquake was recorded 5 kilometers below the ground at 4:35 pm.
- 5 January: Earthquake of 3.0 magnitude struck Sonipat, Haryana. It came at 3:57 in the morning and was at a depth of 10 kilometers from the ground.
- 6 January: An earthquake of 3.7 magnitude occurred in Palghar district of Maharashtra. Came to Dahanu taluka of Palghar at 4:35 in the morning. There was no loss of life or property.
- 7 January: An earthquake of 7.1 magnitude occurred in China’s Tibet province at 6.30 am. Its tremors were also felt in Delhi-NCR, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Sikkim of India. Its center was 10 kilometers below the ground in Shijang, Tibet.
Rescue workers are busy helping people in earthquake affected areas in Tibet, China.
Question-2: What happened in the new year that earthquakes are occurring daily? answer: Devesh Walia, Professor of Geology Department at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU), says that it would be wrong to link the frequent earthquakes these days with the New Year. This is just a coincidence. Actually, this whole process has been going on for a long time, the effect of which has started becoming visible in 2025.
Devesh Walia said that studies conducted on earthquakes in the last few years show that the stress on the earth is continuously increasing. Along with this, geographical pressure is also continuously increasing. Due to which tectonic plates have started colliding with each other continuously. This disturbance among the earth has increased in the last few days. The latest example of this is the Nepal earthquake on January 6 and the China earthquake on January 7.
Question-3: What are the tectonic plates buried under the ground? answer: To understand tectonic plates, one has to understand the internal structure of the Earth. Actually, the earth is made up of 4 layers.
Question-4: How do earthquakes occur due to tectonic plates? answer: There are mainly 7 major tectonic plates in the earth’s crust. Which are connected to each other. The asthenosphere beneath these plates is made of hot lava. Flames of fire keep rising in it. Due to this, pressure keeps building on the tectonic plates, due to which these plates keep moving. Although its speed is very slow. The zone where these plates collide is called a fault line.
Due to the repeated collision of tectonic plates under the earth, their corners keep turning. When too much pressure builds up, these plates start breaking, releasing energy equivalent to hundreds of nuclear explosions. This energy spreads to the rest of the earth through four types of webs in two steps and shows its effect.
1. Ground Webs: Energy reaches the earth’s surface from the epicenter of an earthquake through two types of waves. P wave and S wave. The P wave is like a spring, in which one ring presses the ring ahead of it. Its frequency and speed are high, that is, it transmits energy quickly to the earth’s surface. S waves grow in the shape of the English alphabet S. The speed of S wave is less than P wave.
2. Surface Waves: After reaching the earth’s surface, the immense energy released from an earthquake spreads in two ways.
- Rayleigh waves: Rayleigh waves propagate on the Earth’s surface and cause the most damage during earthquakes. These proceed in two ways. Firstly, like the waves arising in the sea and secondly, like the waves arising after throwing a stone in stagnant water. There is energy around them too, which causes terrible destruction.
- Love Waves: Moves like a snake. It causes less destruction than Rayleigh waves.
Question-5: Is daily earthquake a sign of a major earthquake? answer: Devesh Walia believes that these small earthquakes are a warning of the coming of a big earthquake. He says, ‘Earthquakes come in three ways, one of which is earthquake swamp. In this, small earthquakes start occurring before any major earthquake occurs. In this it has to be seen how far below the ground these earthquakes are occurring. The depth of the earthquakes that occurred in the last 7 days is between 5 to 15 kilometers. This means that these small earthquakes are a warning of the coming of a big earthquake.
Devesh Walia said,
If these small earthquakes do not stop happening in the coming days, then it is a warning of some big danger. From this it can only be inferred that a huge earthquake is about to occur.
In 2022, Dr. Derrick Hastrock, lecturer in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, Australia, and his colleagues prepared a new map of all the tectonic plates present on Earth. It was told that the microplate between the Indian Plate and the Australian Plate has been included in the map.
The big plates of Australia are pushing the Indian plates through the microplate, because the microplate is in between the two big plates. Due to this push and pressure, pressure is increasing in the north-eastern region of India. From this, it can also be inferred that due to the collision of these two plates, earthquakes are occurring continuously in the northern parts including the Himalayas since the new year, which is a sign of more intense earthquakes to come in the future.
Question-6: In which areas most of the earthquakes occur in India? answer: According to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), India is divided into 5 earthquake zones. It includes earthquake affected areas from Zone-2 to Zone-5. Earthquakes rarely occur in Zone-1 areas. At the same time, 59% of the country is in earthquake risk zone. This includes areas of Zone 3, 4 and 5.
Zone 5: India accounts for 11% of this. This includes the Kashmir Valley, the western part of Himachal Pradesh, the eastern part of Uttarakhand, the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat and the northern part of Bihar.
Zone 4: This covers 18% of the country. This includes the remaining parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, remaining parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, parts of Haryana and Punjab, Delhi, Sikkim, northern part of Uttar Pradesh, parts of Bihar and West Bengal, coastal parts of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Includes some parts of western Rajasthan.
Zone 3: India accounts for 30% of this. This includes Kerala, Goa, Lakshadweep group, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, remaining parts of Gujarat and Punjab, some areas of West Bengal, western Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, some areas of Bihar, northern part of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Some areas of Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are included.
Zone 2: It covers 18% of India, which includes the remaining parts of Rajasthan, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu.
Question-7: When did the biggest and most dangerous earthquake occur in India?
answer: The biggest earthquakes have occurred in India three times so far…
1. Andaman’s Indira Point sank due to earthquake and tsunami in 2004 Indira Point of Andaman and Nicobar Islands sank due to the earthquake and tsunami that struck Indonesia on 26 December 2004. This earthquake caused devastation in 14 countries including India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia. The tsunami generated by this earthquake reduced the height of Indira Point by about 4.24 meters. About 1.7 lakh people died in this disaster.
Indira Point of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. (file photo)
2. Devastation caused by earthquake in Kutch, Gujarat in 2001 In 2001, an earthquake of 6.9 magnitude occurred in Gujarat, which affected 24 districts of Gujarat. It caused maximum devastation in Kutch, Surendranagar and Radhanpur. 7904 villages were destroyed in this earthquake. About 17 thousand people died and 1.67 lakh people were injured. In Bhuj of Kutch district, more than three thousand people died and 90% of the houses were damaged.
1.48 lakh people were rendered homeless in this earthquake.
3. Island formed in Bhuj due to earthquake 204 years ago 204 years ago i.e. in 1819, an island was formed due to an earthquake in Bhuj, Gujarat. It is known as Allah Bandh. Its intensity could not be known, but it is believed that this type of island was formed when an earthquake of more than 7.8 intensity occurred.
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Research cooperation- Ayush Aggarwal
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