The 2008 Ziarat earthquakes hit the Pakistani province of

Balochistan Balochistan ( ; bal, بلۏچستان; also romanised as Baluchistan and Baluchestan) is a historical region in Western and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. ...

on October 29 with a

moment magnitude The moment magnitude scale (MMS; denoted explicitly with or Mw, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude) is a measure of an earthquake's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. It was defined in a 1979 pape ...

of 6.4. The

US Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and ...

reported that the first earthquake occurred north of

Quetta Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه‎) is the tenth most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in south-west of the country close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is the capital of ...

and southeast of the

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

city of

Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the c ...

at 04:09 local time (28 October, 23:09 UTC) at a depth of , at 30.653°N, 67.323°E. It was followed by another shallower magnitude 6.4 earthquake at a depth of approximately 12 hours after the initial shock, at 30.546°N, 67.447°E. 215 people were confirmed dead. More than 200 were injured (according to Mohammed Zaman, assistant to the Balochistan chief secretary, Nasir Khosa), and 120,000 were homeless (according to Dilawar Khan Kakar,

Ziarat Ziarat (Urdu and ps, ) is a city in the Ziarat District situated in the Balochistan. It is from the capital city of Eastern Balochistan Quetta. It was established as a district on 1st July 1986, before then it was part of Sibi district. Th ...

mayor and chief administrator). Qamar Zaman Chaudhry, director general of Pakistan Meteorological Department, stated the quake

epicenter The epicenter, epicentre () or epicentrum in seismology is the point on the Earth's surface directly above a hypocenter or focus, the point where an earthquake or an underground explosion originates. Surface damage Before the instrumental pe ...

was north of Quetta, and about southwest of

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...

Tectonic summary

Western and northern Pakistan lie across the complex plate boundary where the

Indian Plate The Indian Plate (or India Plate) is a minor tectonic plate straddling the equator in the Eastern Hemisphere. Originally a part of the ancient continent of Gondwana, the Indian Plate broke away from the other fragments of Gondwana , began ...

is colliding with the

Eurasian Plate The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate that includes most of the continent of Eurasia (a landmass consisting of the traditional continents of Europe and Asia), with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent and ...

. In this area the convergence is highly oblique, with the relative northward movement of the Indian Plate of 40 mm/yr (1.6 inches/yr) being at a low angle to the plate boundary. The main

active fault An active fault is a fault that is likely to become the source of another earthquake sometime in the future. Geologists commonly consider faults to be active if there has been movement observed or evidence of seismic activity during the last 10,0 ...

s are dominated by sinistral (left-lateral) strike-slip motion, with the

Chaman Fault The Chaman Fault is a major, active geological fault in Pakistan and Afghanistan that runs for over 850 km.

being the most important structure, accommodating a large proportion of the plate boundary displacement. The shortening component of the convergence is mainly accommodated by the Kirthar and Sulaiman

fold and thrust belt A fold and thrust belt (FTB) is a series of mountainous foothills adjacent to an orogenic belt, which forms due to contractional tectonics. Fold and thrust belts commonly form in the forelands adjacent to major orogens as deformation propagates o ...

s. There is a sharp change in orientation of these two thrust belts near Quetta, known as the Quetta

Syntaxis Syntaxis is a style in writing or in rhetoric that favors complex syntax, in contrast to the simple sentence structures of parataxis. For example, 19th-century German academic prose, and John Milton's ''Paradise Lost'' poetry in English ...

, where the north–south trending Kirthar ranges meet the west–east trending Sulaiman ranges. This area is the most seismically active part of this oblique segment of the plate margin, producing major earthquakes such as the 1935 Quetta event, which caused at least an estimated 30,000 deaths.

Earthquake sequence

The earthquake sequence began at 22:33 UTC on October 28, with a magnitude 5.3

foreshock A foreshock is an earthquake that occurs before a larger seismic event (the mainshock) and is related to it in both time and space. The designation of an earthquake as ''foreshock'', ''mainshock'' or aftershock is only possible after the full se ...

. This was followed just over 30 minutes later at 23:09 by the first of the M 6.4 doublet earthquakes. The second M 6.4 doublet earthquake occurred at 11:32 on October 29. There were five significant aftershocks in the period up to December 12, including three M>5 earthquakes on that day. The observed focal mechanisms were almost all strike-slip in type, but it remained unclear which faults ruptured during the sequence, with both southwest–northeast trending sinistral (left lateral) and northwest–southeast trending dextral (right lateral) faults being proposed. Investigations using

InSAR Interferometric synthetic aperture radar, abbreviated InSAR (or deprecated IfSAR), is a radar technique used in geodesy and remote sensing. This geodetic method uses two or more synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images to generate maps of surface defo ...

data supported activity on multiple faults in both of these orientations.

Damage

Most of the casualties were from two villages on the outskirts of

town. Balochistan chief minister Nawab Aslam Khan Raisani ordered declaration of emergency in the hospitals of the affected areas. These areas, situated on steep terrain, were badly damaged by landslides caused by the quake. Hundreds of mud houses were destroyed. The tremors were felt in

, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Mastung,

Sibi Sibi (Sindhi: سيوي ur, ) is a city situated in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. The city is the headquarters of the district and tehsil of the same name. Etymology The origin of the town's name is attributed to Rani Sewi, a Hindu lad ...

, Bolan, Kuchlak and

Loralai Loralai ( ps, لورلايي, ur, ), also known as Bori ( ps, ), is the division headquarter of Loralai Division and district headquarter of Loralai District. It is in the northeast of Balochistan province in Pakistan. It is above sea level ...

areas.

Response

Dilawar Khan, mayor of

Ziarat District Ziarat ( ur, ) is a district in the north of Balochistan province of Pakistan. Ziarat town (situated at an altitude of about 2,400 meters) is headquarters of the district of the Sub division, and also of the tehsil. Khalifat Hills have the highe ...

, stated that his office had requested support from the local government.

Pakistani military The Pakistan Armed Forces (; ) are the military forces of Pakistan. It is the world's sixth-largest military measured by active military personnel and consist of three formally uniformed services—the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, which are ...

helicopters and troops were dispatched to assess damage and aid victims.

References

External links

Crisis briefing Pakistan quake 2008
Fro
Reuters Alertnet BBC, In pictures: Pakistan quakeBBC, History of deadly earthquakes
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:2008 Pakistan Earthquake Pakistan earthquake Earthquakes in Pakistan

Earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...