{"id":20571,"date":"2016-11-30T09:35:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T09:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/?p=20571"},"modified":"2016-11-30T09:35:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T09:35:47","slug":"bhutan-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/2016\/11\/30\/bhutan-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Earthquake induced landslides in the Himalayan mountains – new evidence for earthquake potential in Bhutan"},"content":{"rendered":"
Earthquake induced landslides in the Himalayan mountains – new evidence for earthquake potential in Bhutan<\/h5>\n

In terms of large earthquakes Bhutan has always been something of a conundrum.\u00a0 The ongoing collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates that has generated the Himalayas occurs along a huge set of faults that run through the frontal range of the mountains and then dip below them.\u00a0 It is this fault that generated the 2015 earthquake in Nepal.\u00a0 Considerable work has been done to understand the palaeoseismology of this fault system, which has yielded a long history of large earthquakes – except for the Bhutan segment. There has been some very slender evidence of an earthquake in the early 18th Century, but nothing very detailed. This has led to speculation that this section of fault might behave differently in some way – perhaps that it undergoes slow slip to release the stress.<\/p>\n

\"Bhutan\"

Google Earth image of Bhutan<\/p><\/div>\n

.<\/p>\n

When I was in Bhutan a few years ago I raised the issue of earthquake triggered landslides with a range of people, to be told that there was no problem as Bhutan does not get large earthquakes.\u00a0 I found that this troubling.\u00a0 The country is very landslide prone, and the problem is becoming worse as the country develops.\u00a0 Everything about the landscape suggests that earthquake triggered landslides would be a big problem during a large seismic event, and issue that has been emphasised by the Nepal and New Zealand earthquakes.\u00a0 So understanding whether Bhutan suffers major earthquakes really matters.<\/p>\n

I am glad to say that this problem appears to have been resolved at last.\u00a0 In a paper published last month, Hetenyi et al<\/em> (2016)<\/a> reported archive and field work, and resultant modeling, that they have undertaken that has unearthed details of a large earthquake, likely to have been approximately M=8.0 (the range is 7.5-8.5), in Bhutan in 1714 AD. \u00a0 The evidence includes a series of documentary accounts of the damage caused by the earthquake, and data from trenches across the fault that provide evidence of the movement.\u00a0 From this information Hetenyi et al<\/em> (2016)<\/a> have modeled the earthquake to get an estimate of its likely magnitude.<\/p>\n

To me this feels like a really important study.\u00a0 We now know that the entirety of the Himalayan Arc has the potential to generate devastating earthquakes, and thus to suffer earthquake-induced landslides.\u00a0 The implications for hazard management in Bhutan are clear.<\/p>\n

Reference<\/h5>\n

H<\/span><\/cite><\/em>et\u00e9nyi, G.<\/span><\/cite>, R. Le Roux-Mallouf<\/span>, T. Berthet<\/span>, R. Cattin<\/span>, C. Cauzzi<\/span>, K. Phuntsho<\/span>, and R. Grolimund<\/span> (2016<\/span>) Joint approach combining damage and paleoseismology observations constrains the 1714\u2009A.D. Bhutan earthquake at magnitude 8\u2009\u00b1\u20090.5<\/span><\/a>, Geophysical Research Letters<\/span>, 43<\/span>, 10,695<\/span>\u201310,702<\/span>.<\/cite><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recently-published paper suggests that the Himalayan country of Bhutan suffered a major (approx M=8.0) earthquake in 1714, emphasing the potential for a future event that would probably lead to extensive landsliding. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":20575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[559,23,469,72],"class_list":["post-20571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review-of-a-paper","tag-bhutan","tag-earthquake","tag-featured","tag-south-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.agu.org\/landslideblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}