Slew of moderate quakes witnessed at Andaman Islands

No casualties or damage was reported. Interestingly, the Andaman earthquake was one of the four moderate quakes that occurred in a chain at Papua New Guinea, Taiwan and the Andaman islands within an hour of each other.

None of these earthquakes led to a tsunami because they were all strike slip fault earthquakes. “There was no tsunami threat at all. It was a strike slip earthquake,” Dr Satheesh Shenoy, director-general, INCOIS, said. The situation would have been different had it been a vertical slip earthquakes. Only reverse fault earthquakes cause tsunamis as plates move in the vertical direction.

Scientists say these could have been triggered by the devastating 7.9 earthquake that hit Nepal earlier this week, although there is no evidence of that of yet. The Andaman earthquake was recorded to at 2.28 pm. Prior to it, there was a 6.7 magnitude earthquake in Papua New Guinea at 1.36 pm IST. A smaller earthquake, of 4.9 magnitude, hit Papua the New Guinea region at 3.24 pm IST. The last one was near Taiwan at 6.28 pm IST and was even smaller with a 4.4 magnitude. Dr Shenoy said that all of them were strike slip earthquakes.

Dr N. Purnachandra Rao, principal scientist, National Geophysical Research Institute, said, “We are analysing these earthquakes as of now. But sometimes there are smaller earthquakes in other parts of the world after a large earthquake. There is no evidence as of now if these were because of the Nepal earthquake.”