Preliminary Earthquake Report
U.S. Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center World Data Center for Seismology, Denver
A major earthquake occurred at 03:50:40 (UTC) on Saturday, October 8, 2005.
The magnitude 7.6 event has been located in PAKISTAN.
(This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.)
Saturday, October 8, 2005 at 03:50:40 (UTC) = Coordinated Universal Time
Saturday, October 8, 2005 at 8:50:40 AM = local time at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
100 km (65 miles) NNE of ISLAMABAD, Pakistan
120 km (75 miles) WNW of Srinagar, Kashmir
120 km (75 miles) ESE of Mingaora, Pakistan
170 km (105 miles) SSW of Gilgit, Kashmir
Over 22,288 people killed, 50,575 injured and many buildings heavily damaged or destroyed in northern Pakistan. The heaviest damage occurred in the Muzaffarabad area where entire villages were destroyed. Buildings collapsed in Gujranwala, Gujrat, Islamabad and Lahore. Felt at Chakwal, Faisalabad, Jhang, Sargodha and as far as Quetta. At least 946 people killed and 4,386 injured in India. The heaviest damage occurred at Uri where 80 percent of the town was destroyed. At least 32,335 buildings collapsed in Anantnag, Baramula, Jammu and Srinagar, Kashmir. Felt in Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh, India. At least one person killed and some buildings collapsed in Afghanistan. Felt from central Afghanistan to western Bangladesh. An estimated 4 million people in the area left homeless. Landslides and rockfalls damaged roads and bridges blocking access to many of the heavily damaged areas.
Earthquakes and active faults in northern Pakistan and adjacent parts of India and Afghanistan are the direct result of the Indian subcontinent moving northward at a rate of about 40 mm/yr (1.6 inches/yr) and colliding with the Eurasian continent. This collision is causing uplift that produces the highest mountain peaks in the world including the Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush ranges. As the Indian plate moves northward, it is being subducted or pushed beneath the Eurasian plate. Much of the compressional motion between these two colliding plates has been and continues to be accommodated by slip on a suite of major thrust faults that are at the Earths surface in the foothills of the mountains and dip northward beneath the ranges. These include the Main Frontal thrust, the Main Central thrust, the Main boundary thrust, and the Main Mantle thrust. These thrust faults have a sinuous trace as they arc across the foothills in northern India and into northern Pakistan. In detail, the modern active faults are actually a system of faults comprised of a number of individual fault traces. In the rugged mountainous terrain, it is difficult to identify and map all of the individual thrust faults, but the overall tectonic style of the modern deformation is clear in the area of the earthquake; north- and northeast-directed compression is producing thrust faulting. Near the town of Muzaffarabad, about 10 km southwest of the earthquake epicenter, active thrust faults that strike northwest-southeast have deformed and warped Pleistocene alluvial-fan surfaces into anticlinal ridges. The strike and dip direction of these thrust faults is compatible with the style of faulting indicated by the focal mechanism from the nearby M 7.6 earthquake.
