South Indians need not worry about earthquakes

People living in the Southern part of India need not worry about an earthquake striking the area since they are sitting on a very hard rock.

“Southern part of India generally can’t expect an earthquake because of the hardness of its surface made up of charnockite and khondalite rocks which have metamorphosed very much due to the high temperature during their formation (some hundreds of millions of years ago)”, former professor of geology of Andhra University and a noted geologist C. Kasipathi said while talking about Wednesday night’s tremors that were felt all over the east coast and some inland areas. Tremors are caused for a very brief period due to disturbances in the movement of tectonic plates of earths’ crust, he explained on Thursday. The plates, under which there is a volcanic activity are always in motion but the plate and their motion is noticed only when there is an earthquake and tremors.

The tremors occurred due to an earthquake of six magnitude that occurred at the depth of 10 km. in the Bay of Bengal bed 275 km. south east of Paradip in Odisha around 9.50 a.m.

Earthquake’s magnitude is generally around four or five magnitude and even it is of six magnitude like on Wednesday night Southern part of India need not worry. “Even if it is of magnitude eight, people in Southern region need not worry. If it happens on a higher magnitude like eight, this region would not suffer damages like collapse of houses and bridges and damage to roads and other structures” Prof. Kasipathi told

The Hindu . Unlike Southern part, the Northern part of India has soft rocks and is susceptible to damage due to earthquake.

There is no volcanic activity in this region like in the US or Japan, to be afraid of facing an earthquake.

Prof. Kasipathi said India is slowly moving towards North India and after a few lakh of years, the country will come under the Himalayas.