1803 Garhwal earthquake
1803 earthquake in India
The 1803 Garhwal earthquake occurred in the early morning of September 1 at 01:30 local time. The estimated 7.8-magnitude-earthquake had an epicenter in the Garhwal Himalaya near Uttarkashi, British India. Major damage occurred in the Himalaya and Indo-Gangetic Plain, with the loss of between 200 and 300 lives. It is among the largest Himalaya earthquakes of the 19th-century, caused by thrust faulting.
Tectonic setting
The Himalaya is located at the convergent boundary where active convergence leads to continental collision. The India and Eurasian plates began colliding approximately 50 million years ago when the Tethys Ocean closed. The Main Himalayan Thrust (MHT), a decollement structure, defines the boundary between the Indian plate and Eurasian plate. The convergent zone also contains three other major faults; the Main Boundary Thrust, Main Central Thrust and South Tibetan Detachment. At the surface, the Main Himalayan Thrust propagates along the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT). These faults runs for approximately 2,300 km in an east–west direction, parallel to the southern foothills of the Lower Himalayan Range from Assam, through Nepal, and into Pakistan.
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This entry incorporates text from “1803 Garhwal earthquake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.