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, from ...

struck

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

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. ...

near the city of

Harnai Harnai ( ps, هرنای, ur, ) is the capital of Harnai District in the Balochistan province of Pakistan. It was previously in Sibi District. It is located in the northeast of Balochistan province. The town is surrounded by the cities Ziarat, ...

on 7 October 2021. The

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 ...

5.9 quake struck in the early morning at 03:01 local time, killing at least 27, injuring 300, and leaving 15 missing. The earthquake occurred just one day before the anniversary of the

2005 Kashmir earthquake The 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at on 8 October in Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir. It was centred near the city of Muzaffarabad, and also affected nearby Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and some areas of Indian-administered Jammu and ...

Tectonic setting

Pakistan is directly influenced by the ongoing oblique

convergence Convergence may refer to: Arts and media Literature *''Convergence'' (book series), edited by Ruth Nanda Anshen *Convergence (comics), "Convergence" (comics), two separate story lines published by DC Comics: **A four-part crossover storyline that ...

between 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 mov ...

and

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 ...

. Along the northern margin of the India-Eurasia convergent boundary is the

Main Himalayan Thrust The Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT) is a décollement under the Himalaya Range. This thrust fault follows a NW-SE strike, reminiscent of an arc, and gently dip towards the north, beneath the region. It is the largest active continental megathrust f ...

which accommodates north-south

continental collision In geology, continental collision is a phenomenon of plate tectonics that occurs at convergent boundaries. Continental collision is a variation on the fundamental process of subduction, whereby the subduction zone is destroyed, mountains prod ...

. Thrust faulting in the

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Provinc ...

and

Himalaya The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...

region is the direct result of the plate interaction. In the Balochistan region, the convergence is highly oblique, involving the large

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

; a left-lateral

strike-slip In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...

structure. While a large portion of the boundary is accommodated by strike-slip faulting, the region also hosts the 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 ou ...

. Major

thrusting Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that sys ...

and folding have occurred within the ~10-km-thick sedimentary rocks which sits atop the India-Eurasia plate boundary; a near-horizontal, north-dipping

décollement Décollement () is a gliding plane between two rock masses, also known as a basal detachment fault. Décollements are a deformational structure, resulting in independent styles of deformation in the rocks above and below the fault. They are ass ...

. The

occurred near the vicinity of the

. The more recent and larger magnitude 7.7 quake in 2013 in Balochistan was the result of oblique-slip faulting along this highly oblique boundary. That earthquake killed at least 800 and caused major damage in the province. Closer to the region was a 7.1 earthquake in 1997 which struck southeast, killing at least 60 people. That earthquake also had a thrust mechanism but occurred on a blind thrust fault.

Earthquake

According to the

U.S. 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 ...

, the earthquake occurred due to a shallow

thrust fault A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. If ...

rupturing—the fault is part of the

under the

Sulaiman Mountains The Sulaiman Mountains, also known as Kōh-e Sulaymān ( Balochi/Urdu/ fa, ; "Mountains of Solomon") or Da Kasē Ghrūna ( ps, د كسې غرونه; "Mountains of Kasi"), are a north–south extension of the southern Hindu Kush mountain system i ...

and Central Brāhui Range. Rupture occurred on a fault either dipping shallowly to the north, or a fault dipping steeply to the south. It was followed by two magnitude 4.6 and 4.5 aftershocks. It was the largest earthquake in this region of Pakistan since a major tremor in 2013 which occurred nearby. The

GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences The GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, also known as GFZ Helmholtz Centre Potsdam or just GFZ, is the national research center for Earth Sciences in Germany, located on the Telegrafenberg in Potsdam, in the German federal state of Branden ...

placed the earthquake magnitude at 5.8 at 10 km depth with a

moment tensor solution The focal mechanism of an earthquake describes the deformation in the source region that generates the seismic waves. In the case of a fault-related event it refers to the orientation of the fault plane that slipped and the slip vector and is ...

indicating thrust faulting.

Impact

Striking early in the morning at just after 03:00

local time Local time is the time observed in a specific locality. There is no canonical definition. Originally it was mean solar time, but since the introduction of time zones it is generally the time as determined by the time zone in effect, with daylight s ...

, the earthquake collapsed many homes where residents were asleep. According to the

Provincial Disaster Management Authority (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) is a provincial government organization, which deals with natural or man-made disasters in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. PDMA's mandate is to engage in activities concerning to all four ...

(PDMA), severe damage was reported in the

Harnai District Harnai ( bal, ہرنائ, ps, هرنای, ur, ) is a district in the north-east of Balochistan province of Pakistan. Harnai is the principal town of this district and serves as its capital. The predominant first language is Pashto. Wanetsi or ...

and Shahrag area, where 409 mud homes were destroyed and 15,000 damaged. Damage was also reported in the cities of

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 la ...

and

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

. Provincial Minister Mir Ziaullah Langau said landslides have blocked roads leading to the affected region, disrupting rescue and recovery efforts. The majority of homes in the affected region were constructed of

mud A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

and

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

, making them vulnerable to collapse or severe damage from earthquakes. The Deputy Commissioner at Government of Balochistan, Suhail Anwar Hashmi said that most of the fatalities resulted from roof and wall collapses. According to geologist Sotiris Valkaniotis, the quake triggered at least 116

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, deep-seated grade (slope), slope failures, mudflows, and debris flows. Landslides occur in a variety of ...

s, based on inferring satellite imagery from

Sentinel-2 Sentinel-2 is an Earth observation mission from the Copernicus Programme that systematically acquires optical imagery at high spatial resolution (10 m to 60 m) over land and coastal waters. The mission is currently a constellation with two satel ...

Casualties

At least 27 people died, mostly women and children. An unspecified number of residents were buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings and rescued by survivors. About 300 people were injured, with many hospitals in

overwhelmed by the influx of patients. Ten injured individuals, mostly men and elders were airlifted to

. On the afternoon the same day of the disaster, funerals were held for those who had died. A district hospital in Harnai received 15 dead bodies and many severely injured children. Many of the patients were treated outside the hospital building due to overcapacity. Four deaths were

coal miners People have worked as coal miners for centuries, but they became increasingly important during the Industrial revolution when coal was burnt on a large scale to fuel stationary and locomotive engines and heat buildings. Owing to coal's strategic ro ...

working when the mine collapsed. In another instance, a mother and her two children were killed in their sleep when their home collapsed. Another girl, aged eight, was found lifeless under the wreckage. Six children were among the dead, including a one-year-old infant. Dozens of

in Balochistan are also reportedly missing, presumably trapped. According to the Deputy Commissioner of Harnai, 15 miners are unaccounted for outside the city. Rescue workers were sent to search for the missing. By 9 October, 33 injured people were getting treatment for their injuries at the Sandeman Provincial Hospital in

. Some victims were taken to the trauma center for their severe injuries. On 10 October, an

aftershock In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousand ...

measuring magnitude 4.5 shook Harnai, injuring six people. The injured individuals were transported to a local hospital where they were treated. It was reported on October 16 that a casualty died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

, bringing the death toll to 27.

Response

Following the quake, troops from the

Pakistan Army The Pakistan Army (, ) is the Army, land service branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The roots of its modern existence trace back to the British Indian Army that ceased to exist following the partition of India, Partition of British India, wh ...

were dispatched to Harnai to aid in rescue and relief operations. At least nine injured victims in need of medical treatment were transported via helicopters from the affected region to

. The

Inter-Services Public Relations The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) ( ur, ), is the media and PR wing of the Pakistan Armed Forces. It broadcasts and coordinates military news and information to the country's civilian media and the civic society. The ISPR directo ...

, army, medical personnel, response workers, and officials are working together to coordinate the rescue and relief works. A team of search and rescue individuals from Rawalpindi was sent to Harnai to find survivors among the wreckage. Provincial officials in Balochistan announced that 200,000

Pakistani rupee The Pakistani rupee ( ur, / ALA-LC: ; sign: Re (singular) and Rs (plural); ISO code: PKR) is the official currency of Pakistan since 1948. The coins and notes are issued and controlled by the central bank, namely State Bank of Pakistan. In ...

s (approximately 1,170 US dollars) would be compensated to the families of each deceased individual.

Sania Nishtar Sania Nishtar ( ur, ) (Born: 16 February 1963); SI), is a Pakistani physician, cardiologist, senator, author and activist who remained Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety to the Prime Minister of Pakistan, with the stat ...

, a Pakistani physician, was to pay a visit to the affected area on instructions by the

Prime Minister of Pakistan The prime minister of Pakistan ( ur, , romanized: Wazīr ē Aʿẓam , ) is the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen cabinet, despite the president of Paki ...

, where she would meet the victims and provide relief. Relief workers guided by the

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, an ...

were dispatched to the province to provide medical assistance. Residents who were homeless after the quake were housed in tents and provided basic needs. Despite the supplies given, many residents were still complaining that they are insufficient. Officials said that the delivery of supplies are delayed due to landslides and that the areas are not easily accessible. A relief package of 12,000

s was approved by the

government of Pakistan The Government of Pakistan ( ur, , translit=hakúmat-e pákistán) abbreviated as GoP, is a federal government established by the Constitution of Pakistan as a constituted governing authority of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provin ...

and is planned to be distributed to each affected family. The package would be distributed to the families Ehsaas Programme. Food trucks arrived in Harnai on October 11, supplying food for survivors. The

and

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

, together with the district administration distributed tents and food to over 500 individuals. The army also conducted building inspections. Medical tents setup by the army has treated at least 3,000 people. Mining in the Harnai district was brought to a temporary ban by the

Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation The Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) ( ur, ) is a semi-autonomous corporation attached to the ''Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources'', of the Government of Pakistan. It was created in 1973 with an authorized capital of Rs.1 ...

from October 12 to 19. Officials fear aftershocks could result in further casualties if they collapse mines. Local officials have banned the transportation of relief supplies outside the

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Balochistan earthquake, 2021 2021 disasters in Pakistan 2021 earthquakes in Asia

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, from ...

2021 earthquake Earthquakes in Pakistan Harnai District October 2021 events in Pakistan 2021 earthquakes