Another Tsunami likely our generation is going to experience

NEW DELHI: Millions of people living on the Bay of Bengal coast face a tsunami, possibly as devastating as the one in 2004 which killed more than 200,000 people when a 9.3 magnitude earthquake triggered it off Sumatra. Renowned geologist from Geoscience Australia, Phil R Cummins, known to have also predicted the 2004 tsunami, however, claimed that he could not predict the time frame in which such a catastrophic event could happen. In a paper in the journal Nature, Cummins warned that there was a distinct possibility of a quake measuring 8.5-9 on the Richter scale striking the northern region of Bay of Bengal. Quakes of more than 8 magnitude are known to cause such powerful tsunamis. The densely populated coasts of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar would be the most severely hit by such a tsunami if Cummins's prediction comes true. He studied what geologists call the Arakan subduction zone where the Indian and Southeast Asia plates meet. This stretch underlies all the land and water mass from Java and Sumatra to the eastern Himalayas right up to Arunachal Pradesh. A subduction zone refers to a region where, due to several reasons, two plates collide with one plate sliding over the other, causing earthquakes. Current science theories suggest that the subduction is not strong enough in the northern Bay of Bengal region where it weakens because of an oblique movement instead of a 'pure subduction'. But now, Cummins predicts that there is a distinct possibility of such a 'pure subduction'. He backs it up with historical data of tectonic movement from a 1762 earthquake in the Arakan area of Myanmar. But other scientists the world over have taken the paper with a pinch of salt, though terming the paper as a fair warning. R K Chaddha, project leader for seismology at the National Geophysical Research Institute, said.

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