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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 6/12/24: Still More Shakin' [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-12  

Anniversaries for the most and second-most powerful earthquakes in history fell on Wednesday this year and here’s another one. The Assam Earthquake of 1897 happened before seismoqraphs were a thing so it’s hard to say where exactly it ranks among the most powerful, but by other measures it was up there.

The Assam earthquake of 1897 occurred on 12 June, in Assam, British India at 11:06[2] UTC, and had an estimated moment magnitude of 8.2–8.3.[1] It resulted in approximately 1,542 human casualties and caused catastrophic damage to infrastructures. Damage from the earthquake extended into Calcutta, where dozens of buildings were severely damaged, with some buildings partially collapsing. Trembles were felt across India, reaching as far as Ahmedabad and Peshawar. Seiches were also observed in Burma.[4] The earthquake occurred on the south–southwest-dipping reverse Oldham Fault that forms the northern edge of the Shillong Plateau.[2][6][7] There was a minimum displacement on the main fault of 11 m, although some calculations have placed this figure at as high as 16 m; one of the greatest for any measured earthquake.[6] The calculated area of slip extended 180 km along the strike and from 9–45 km beneath the surface, indicating that the entire thickness of the crust was involved. Thought to have happened 32 km beneath the surface, the earthquake left masonry buildings in ruins over 400,000 km2 area and was felt over 650,000 km2 from Burma to Delhi. Numerous buildings in the neighboring country of Bhutan were heavily damaged.[8] Dozens of aftershocks were felt in and around the region with the last event being felt on 9 October 1897 at 01:40 UT in Calcutta.[4]

It made a serious mess of things.

In Shillong, the earthquake took place at about 5:11pm June 12th. The shock was preceded by a rumbling underground noise which lasted for about 3 minutes (12). The actual earthquake lasted about two and a half minutes in Shillong. This noise was compared with the tremendous rumbling noise like a thousand ships' engines thumping away in the midst of a storm at sea (7). The shocks were so severe and prolonged that everything was leveled to the ground (2,16). Mr. F. Smith of Geological Survey of India who was stationed in Shillong at the time, opined that the earthquake was so violent that the whole of the damage was done in the first 10 or 15 seconds of the shock (9). He reported that all stone buildings collapsed, and about half ekrabuilt houses (wooden frame, reed walls covered with plaster) were ruined, but plank houses (wooden frames covered with plank walls, resting unattached on the ground) were untouched. Many people lost their lives at the Secretariat, the military lines and the bazaar. The London Times reported the death of 27 people in Shillong, 13 of them crushed to death in the Government Press (7). However, a year later, Luttman-Johnson reported the loss of ten lives at the Printing Press (12). The London Times also mentioned an unnamed district town of 750 perishing. This town probably was Cherrapunji where a landslide wrecked the Cherrapunji Railway and caused 600 deaths (16).

I don’t know what it says about Wednesdays this year.

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