Earthquake In Afghanistan & Pakistan: Is Today The Beginning?

 (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

Today is two days after a devastating earthquake in Afghanistan and Pakistan and we’re left wondering, is today simply an event in a long string of geologic events? Or can the Afghan and Pakistan people truly believe that this time when they rebuild their homes, hospitals, and schools that they won’t again be torn apart from seismic activity?

As teams of rescue workers begin sorting through the rubble, geologists begin to piece together a string of events and data to better understand the causes of the Hindu Kush earthquake. We will attempt to piece together information to better predict future earthquakes and quantify the short term and long term risk for this region.

As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs. – Charles Francis Richter

A Period Of Rebuilding


As the Afghanistan and Pakistan earthquake death count rises above 300, international aid government support has begun to mobilize support. Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, tweeted support and urgent assessment of damage both within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A Period Of Rebuilding


As the Afghanistan and Pakistan earthquake death count rises above 300, international aid government support has begun to mobilize support. Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, tweeted support and urgent assessment of damage both within Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A Period Of Rebuilding


As the Afghanistan and Pakistan earthquake death count rises above 300, international aid government support has begun to mobilize support. Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, tweeted support and urgent assessment of damage both within Afghanistan and Pakistan.


A Pakistani woman who was injured in Monday’s deadly earthquake rests in an ambulance after she was airlifted from Chitral, at Peshawar airbase in Pakistan, Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015. Rescuers are struggling to reach quake-stricken regions in Pakistan and Afghanistan on Tuesday as officials said the combined death toll from the previous day’s earthquake rose to hundreds. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

Afghanistan-Pakistan Tectonism

The recent magnitude 7.5 earthquake along the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan is one of several major earthquakes to strike this region in the last century. The earthquake occurred due to a reverse fault at 130 miles below the epicenter indicated below. The reverse faulting is caused by the convergence of the India and Eurasia plates in the region at a rate of approximately 40 mm per year. This convergence started approximately 100 million years ago when the India plate broke free from the supercontinent of Gondwana and began moving north until reaching and colliding with the Eurasia plate approximately 55 million years ago. Currently, the India plate is subsiding below the Eurasia plate, causing uplift in the nearby northern mountain ranges, significant thrust faulting, and destabilization in the area.

This incredible collision of two continental plates caused the formation of the Himalayan Mountains as well as the Hindu Kush Mountains proximal to the recent earthquake. Luckily, the intermediate depth of the earthquake, at 130 miles allowed for diffusion before reaching the surface and limited damage compared to a similar magnitude shallow depth earthquake.

The Future Of Afghanistan Earthquakes

Yesterday’s earthquake, despite it’s significant release of subsurface strain, is likely to be followed for some time. There are recent 7+ magnitude earthquakes recorded within 150 miles of the recent earthquake. These earthquakes are a result of the same plate collision that has been occurring for the past 55 million years and will continue for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to predict earthquakes in terms of days, month, or years. Many earthquake predictions are either inaccurate or have a resolution likely in the centuries and of little use to people.

There are significant difficulties to predicting earthquakes like the one in Afghanistan. To predict an earthquake, one must know the tensile strength of the rock, combined with differential stress, propagating stress fields, and many other factors. All of this must be determined 100+ miles below the surface of the earth, creating limited, albeit incredible, tools to determine the earth beneath us.


As subsurface data continues to improve our understanding of earthquakes, we can hope this will lead to a predictive model that will provide hope to devastated regions of continual seismicity. A friend of mine has a saying that geology is bad because every time geology happens people get hurt. This is precisely what should drive us as a society to continue to learn about the world around us so we can understand the world around us and better help those in need. A focused effort can hopefully limit future destruction similar to yesterday’s Afghan earthquake.

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