"The waves were like riding on the ocean after the initial shock subsided," Ian Pierce, one of a team of researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno's Nevada Seismological Laboratory studying the Himalayan w88 live casino fault, said about the 7.3 aftershock that struck Nepal and India Tuesday, May 12.
The team is safe in Kathmandu following the strong aftershock that caused additional loss of life and destruction in the region where disaster struck two weeks ago with a w88 live casino 7.8 earthquake. They spent the day south of Kathmandu towards India in the immediate aftershock zone where they continue their study of the hundreds-of-miles long Himalayan fault.
They are documenting their progress in daily updates, when internet connections are possible, on the University's College of Science website. The team, director of the University's Center for Neotectonic Studies and College of Science geoscientist Steve Wesnousky and his two doctoral w88 live casino Steve Angster and Ian Pierce, have been there about a week. Wesnousky left Nepal by plane just before the aftershock.
One of the first scientists to enter Nepal following the April 25 Gorkha earthquake, Wesnousky has been on the ground in the Himalayas searching for geophysical signs of the w88 live casino 7.8 earthquake.
"Just before it hit,I hearda commotion fromnearbydogs and goats, and then we were moving," Angster wrote on his website. "Scary feeling, but we all feltrelativelysafe where we were standing. We sawseiche(water splashing and swaying) in ponds, bricks falling off of chimneys thatwe were measuring, anddust billowing up from collapsed structures on the horizon. Shaking felt long and slow,kindalike being on a boat in rough water, but not seeing the boat sway."
"It was difficult to stand during the first few seconds," Pierce said. "Shaking like a boat lasted several minutes, likely waves bouncing around the valley. Intense shaking maybe 20 or 30 seconds, but we weren't counting."
Tomorrow the pair will head toPokerahas a jump off point to get toGorkhawhere the main shock was two weeks ago.
"Our prayers and thoughts go out toNepalesepeople tonight," Angster said."Saw lots of people camping out in open spaces tonight.There are so fewopen spacesthat we even saw people in medians in between busy streets."
The aftershock hit near the town of Namche Bazar, near Mount Everest. The U.S. Geological Survey reported it as w88 live casino 7.3. The April 25 earthquake centered in western Nepal was w88 live casino 7.8, four times stronger than today's aftershock. It was felt as far away as Delhi, the capital of India, and Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Strong tremors were felt in the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, which was badly damaged in last month's earthquake.
What the team finds may help scientists to calibrate results from earlier studies and to quantify what the potential is for additional earthquakes in the w88 live casino 8 or w88 live casino 9 range. The team plans to be there for two weeks, possibly longer if they are successful in finding ground ruptures.
