MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFFS: Disaster Precursors - Thousands Of Carcasses Of Olive Ridley Turtles Wash Ashore In Andhra Pradesh, India?!

Dead Olive Ridley turtles. © The Hindu/ Lingaraj Panda

January 1, 2016 - INDIA - Thousands of carcasses of Olive Ridley turtles washed ashore from Ranasthalam to Ichapuram in Srikakulam district.Fishermen said they have seen innumerable carcasses in seashore villages of Gunupalli, Akkupalli, Dokulapadu, Manchineellapeta and Devunaltada in Vajrapu Kothuru mandal in the district in the last two days.

Srikakulam district fisheries joint director MA Yukub Basha said the turtles had died after they were accidentally trapped by trawlers. "This is the breeding season and the turtles come to the shore to lay eggs. Many of them get trapped in the nets of mechanised boats," he said.

Fishermen said that the dead turtles weighed up to 50 kg each. The length of the carapace is between 60 cm and 70 cm. Palasa, Baruva and Vajrapu Kotturu in Srikakulam district and RK Beach, Bheemili and Sagarnagar in Visakhapatnam district are the nesting spots of the turtles in north coastal Andhra. One can find about 1,000 nesting spots between January and March in the region.

Visakha Society for Protection and Care of Animals (VSPCA) founder secretary Pradeep Nath said the animals died due to mechanised boats used by fishermen.

"We will set up an artificial hatchery with the help of AP forest department at RK Beach, and Jodugullapalem beach in Visakhapatnam. We hope to facilitate nearly 35,000 hatchlings," Pradeep Nath said. - Times of India.

GEOLOGICAL UPHEAVALS: Nearly A Dozen Large Sinkholes Open Up In Andhra Pradesh, India - Government Evacuates Villagers!

Kadapa District Collector K.V. Ramana inspecting a large sinkhole formed in Nayanoripalle village in Kadapa District on Sunday.

The Hindu

November 23, 2015 - ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA - The revenue and police officials of Kadapa exhorted the villagers of Nayanoripalle in Chintakommadinne mandal in Kadapa District to vacate the village and move over to safer places and large sinkholes formed in the village could endanger lives.

Kadapa District Collector K.V. Ramana and Geological Survey of India officials of Hyderabad visited Nayanoripalle village on Sunday and inspected the multiple sinkholes. Earlier, officials of the mining and groundwater departments conducted a survey on the Collector's directions and detected limestone deposits at a depth of 30 feet.

Heavy rains since a week resulted in dissolving of the limestone and soil sunk to depths of 30 feet, the officials deduced. The villagers were panic-stricken with the formation of sinkholes of a diameter of 25 metres at several places in Nayanoripalle.

Nearly a dozen large sink holes were formed near Sri Bugga Malleswara Swamy temple and a mini-water tank atop a 15-foot high cement concrete pedestal sunk into the ground. A sinkhole was formed in front of the mandal parishad school in Nayanoripalle and the school compound wall, a surface-level water tank and a couple of trees fell into it. The sinkhole formation was coupled with defeaning sounds spreading panic among the villagers.

As sinkholes were forming with deafening sounds, the officials called upon the residents to vacate the village, as continuing to live there could endanger lives. Already over a dozen families left the village to take shelter in the houses of their relatives elsewhere. The revenue and police officials are proposing to evacuate the villagers who are continuing in Nayanoripalle. - The Hindu.

 

DELUGE: Floods Kill Dozens In Eastern India After Six Days Of Continuous Heavy Rainfall - 42 Dead, 85,000 Evacuated, Major Damage To Crops!

October 27, 2013 - INDIA - Flash floods swept Saturday through the eastern Indian states of Odisha, where at least 19 people were killed, and Andhra Pradesh, where another 21 were killed, CNN-IBN reported.

Indian rickshaw pullers carry passengers through a flooded street in Kolkata on October 26.

Indian police officials pull a boat through water-logged streets as they ferry residents to
a safer place in Kolkata on October 26.

"The flood water entered our village suddenly," one rescued villager told Reuters. "We tried to save our belongings but could not. At last we ran away to a safe place. Now the problem is we don't have food to eat and are staying under open sky."

But a local Puri government official, Madhusudhan Das, said help was under way.

 People wade through a flood-damaged road on the outskirts of Hyderabad on October 26.

 A villager carries an elderly man to safety after crossing floodwaters in Khurda district in the
eastern Indian state of Orissa on Friday, October 25.

A resident walks through a flooded house following heavy rain in Saroornagar, a low lying area
on the outskirts of Hyderabad on October 25.

Two villagers carry their bicycles and wade through floodwaters in Banapur
village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa on October 25.

"We have arranged for dry fruits and have also taken efforts for evacuation," he said. "We have arranged free kitchen for them. Tickets will be provided to them. We will give them house damage assistance. Houses have been damaged on a large scale. We are trying our level best to finish the huge amount of work within a week and we'll also provide them assistance for house damage."

 Pedestrians wade on a flooded street following heavy rain in Saroornagar on October 25.

Rescue team members from the National Disaster Response Force load a chopper with rescue
equipment in the Ganjam district of the eastern Indian state of Orissa on October 25.

In all, 13 districts in Odisha were affected, P.K. Mohapatra, special relief commissioner, said in a telephone interview.

Most affected was the Ganjam District, where 85,000 people were evacuated, he said.


WATCH: Rains claim 42 lives so far in India.

"The situation is very grim as the entire Delta area is completely inundated," Guntur district Collector S Suresh Kumar told CNN's sister network. "Drains and tanks are overflowing and there is a threat of breaches occurring at some places because of the nonstop rain."

Flooding led officials to cancel the fifth of a planned series of seven One Day International cricket matches between India and Australia. - CNN.

STORM ALERT: Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Phailin Makes Landfall In India - 500,000 Evacuated; Biggest Storm In The Region For 14 Years!

October 12, 2013 - INDIA - As many as 500,000 people in India have been evacuated as a massive cyclone sweeps through the Bay of Bengal towards the east coast.

Cyclone Phailin, categorised as "very severe" by weather forecasters, is expected to hit Orissa and Andhra Pradesh states on Saturday evening.

Locals have been shutting up businesses and taking cover as the cyclone approaches.

The Meteorological Department has predicted the storm will bring winds of up to 220km/h (136mph).

A super-cyclone in 1999 killed more than 10,000 people in Orissa.

Cyclone Phailin is expected to be the biggest storm in the region for 14 years.

But officials say this time they are better prepared, the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Orissa reports.

The Meteorological Department said Cyclone Phailin was due to make landfall late on Saturday evening, Indian time. The centre of the storm was expected to hit the coast around the town of Gopalpur.

Homes at risk

Officials said Cyclone Phailin would bring a storm surge of at least 3m (10ft) that was likely to cause "extensive damage" to mud houses on the coast.

"No-one will be allowed to stay in mud and thatched houses in the coastal areas,'' said Orissa's Disaster Management Minister Surya Narayan Patra.


WATCH: Very Severe Cyclone Phailin At Landfall. 

The army is on standby in the two states for emergency and relief operations. Officials said helicopters and food packages were ready to be dropped in the storm-affected areas.

Meanwhile, the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre predicted that Phailin could produce gusts of up to 296km/h (184 mph), while the London-based Tropical Storm Risk classified Phailin as a Category Five storm - the most powerful.

As many as 500,000 people have left their homes, many for storm shelters.

Parts of Orissa and Andhra Pradesh states have suffered heavy flooding in recent days.

Fishermen have been asked not to venture out to sea.

Heavy rain and winds have already struck Orissa, where authorities have set up storm shelters for evacuees.

Janmejay Mohapatra, a resident of Orissa state capital Bhubaneswar, said it was too dangerous to go out now, as trees were down and debris was flying everywhere.

"Already the rain is very heavy and the wind is gusting at 100-120km an hour," he told the BBC. "The phone lines are down where I am and we have no electricity."

Minister Surya Narayan Patra said:"We are fighting against nature. We are better prepared this time, we learnt a lot from 1999."


WATCH: Cyclone Phailin - Windspeeds expected of 220 kms/hour, says IMD .

India's eastern coast and Bangladesh are routinely hit by cyclonic storms between April and November which cause deaths and widespread damage to property.

In December 2011, Cyclone Thane hit the southern state of Tamil Nadu, killing dozens of people. - BBC.

MASS ANIMAL DIE-OFF: 100 Turtles Wash Ashore Dead In Andhra Pradesh, India And Fish Kill In The Periyar River, India?!

February 17, 2013 - INDIA - Nearly 100 carcasses of the endangered Olive Ridley turtles were washed ashore under mysterious circumstances, baffling scientists and locals, at the coast of Appikonda beach in Andhra Pradesh state.

According to reports, this is one of the highest death tolls of Olive Ridleys in Vizag district after a span of four years.

The Olive Ridley turtles, which are listed as an endangered species, land up in thousands on Indian shores between the months of November and March.

100 Turtles Wash Ashore Dead In Andhra Pradesh, India.

The head of the environmental science department, E.U.Bhaskar Reddy, said the cause of the deaths of the turtles is yet to be ascertained.

"Some of the species in the population might be growing older, some may have become sick and some may after death, natural death the worse thing will be throwing them out and these carcasses will be coming to the shore and we have to verify whether these turtles they are coming to the shore in a complete dead state or sick state, then only we can comment," said Reddy.

In February 2008, nearly 700 Olive Ridleys were declared dead on the beaches of Appikonda, Tantadi, Mutyallammapalem and Tikkavanipalem.

Not only turtles, but even territorial fish are becoming victims of the unchecked pollution.

A biopsy was conducted in 2008 on the dead turtles and the reports suggested the presence of nitrates in abnormally high quantity in the guts, indicating that not only the water but even the feed had turned toxic in the area which was the home to these turtles.

After the incident, environmentalists had raised a hue and cry over the issue, and the Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board also promised to take some measures to prevent a repeat of these deaths.

Olive Ridleys migrate from the coast of Mexico to the Andhra Pradesh coast for breeding and nesting each year between the months of November and March.

Many of them die along the Visakhapatnam coast after getting trapped in the double-filament gill nets that are used by trawlers and now pollution is another major problem. (ANI) - News Track India.

Fish Kill In The Periyar River, India.

Allegations and counter-allegations continue to fly after yet another fish kill was reported in the upstream of the Periyar river in Pathalam recently. The Irrigation Department and environmentalists strongly suspect industrial units situated nearby of dumping effluents in to the river leading to frequent fish kills in the area.

However, the Kerala State Pollution Control Board has stuck to its earlier claim that poor water flow in the Pathalam stretch resulted in sudden drop in the dissolved oxygen level which led to the fish kill. The Pollution Control Board had asked the Irrigation Department last week to immediately lift the shutters at Pathalam to increase the water level in the stretch.

M. S. Mythili, Chief Environmental Engineer of the board at Ernakulam, said the dissolved oxygen level at Pathalam bund was 1.6 mg/litre. She said aquatic life would be put under stress, if the oxygen level was below 2 mg/litre.

Findings rejected

A senior official of the Irrigation Department, however, has rejected the board’s findings. He pointed out that despite poor water flow in Manjummel and Purapallikavu stretches of the river, fish kills were not reported near these bunds.

“It is common sense that the industrial units near the Pathalam stretch dump toxic effluents in to the river triggering fish kills. But board officials do not confirm this as they do not want to receive the wrath of the political leadership for being anti-industry,” the official said.

The Irrigation Department officials also clarified that the shutters were downed for three days after the discharge rate from Bhootatankettu dam came down considerably over the past few weeks.

Purushan Eloor, spokesperson of the Periyar Malineekarana Virudha Samithi, supported the views expressed by the Irrigation Department by stating that reduced levels of dissolved oxygen was a clear indicator of high pollution in the Pathalam stretch.

Blaming the nearby industrial units for letting untreated effluents in to the river, Mr. Purushan held the board responsible for not acting against the violators.

“According to the board the dissolved oxygen level near the Pathalam bridge where the fish kill happened is 4.7 mg/litre. This is above the minimum limit prescribed by the board,” he said. - The Hindu.

EXTREMELY DEADLY WEATHER: Nine People Killed As Freak Hailstorm Rains Massive Boulders Down On Indian Villages - Entire Area Cover With Snow Like A Blanket; Destroyed Crops, Houses And Livestock In 7 Villages!

January 31, 2013 - INDIA - Hailstones the size of boulders have rained down on villages in southern India.  At least nine people were killed when the violent weather hit several villages in the state of Andhra Pradesh.  The hailstorm which lasted for almost 20 minutes, destroyed crops, houses and live stock, causing devastating financial implications for residents.

Raining down: People cleaning the streets covered with large boulders of hailstorm Andhra Pradesh, India.

It was once-in-lifetime experience for people living in seven villages in Chevella, Moinabad and Shankarpally. The hailstones started falling from the sky on Tuesday night and covered the entire villages under the snow-like blanket.  Some women were seen attempting to sweep up the massive boulders using flimsy brushes more suited to lighter debris.

Surprising: The hail storm covered the entire villages under the snow like blanket. This was once-in-a-lifetime experience for people living in seven villages such as Chevella, Moinabad and Shankarpally.

Destruction: The hailstorm which lasted for almost 20 minutes destroyed the crops, houses and live stock with massive financial implication for the residents.

Dr K. Sitarama, director, Meteorological Centre Hyderabad, said: 'The hailstorm was caused by an intense thunderstorm.  'Such occurances are highly localised and restricted to a small area.'  The storm in the south was extremely rare as the deadliest hailstorms, and perhaps the largest hailstones, in the world occur on the Deccan Plateau of northern India and in Bangladesh. - Daily Mail.

DELUGE: Severe Flooding in Southern India Kills 25 - Displaces Thousands!

November 7, 2012 - NEW DELHI, INDIA - Flooding in southern India in the wake of a tropical cyclone has killed 25 people in the past few days and driven tens of thousands of others from their homes, authorities said Tuesday. 

Indian residents wade through flood waters in Visakhapatnam in the coastal district of
Andhra Pradesh on November 5, 2012.

The severe weather has caused flooding affecting 5,250 square kilometers (2,000 square miles) of agricultural land in the state of Andhra Pradesh, according to Vinod Kumar, an official at the state's disaster management department.  Cyclone Nilam roared into India's southeastern coast last week, killing at least 15 people in the state of Tamil Nadu and running a large oil tanker aground on the shore near Chennai. 

The storm had already been drenching coastal areas with rain as it loitered over the sea north of Sri Lanka before it made landfall. It brought more than a month's rainfall in just a few of days, according to CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera.  The "high impact, long duration" nature of the downpours "overwhelmed the rivers and streams" and led to the disastrous flooding, Cabrera said.  About 70,000 people in Andhra Pradesh, which is north of Tamil Nadu, have been relocated to temporary shelters, Kumar said Tuesday. The flooding has killed 25 people in the state, he said.  The full extent of the damage to crops won't be known until after the flood waters recede, according to authorities.  Tropical cyclones tend to occur in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea during the April-to-June and September-to-November periods.  A violent tropical storm killed at least 23 people in southeastern Bangladesh last month. And a powerful cyclone that hit India and Bangladesh in May 2009 killed at least 180 people. - CNN.

PLANETARY TREMORS: Mild Tremors in Parts of Andhra Pradesh - Triggers Panic in Eastern India! UPDATE: Delhi's High-Rises Vulnerable to Himalayan Quakes - Government Ignores Warnings!

Mild tremors in parts of Andhra Pradesh on Thursday triggered panic among people. There was no loss of life or damage to property.

People ran out of their houses in several parts of Krishna and Guntur districts in north coastal Andhra and Khammam district in Telangana region as the earth vibrated for few seconds.

People in some areas said they experienced tremors at least five times between 12.25pm and 12.30pm. Vessels and other house-hold items trembled and even fell on the ground, people said.

Fearing another earthquake, people were reluctant to return home and preferred to stay in open grounds.

Scientists at the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) here described the tremors as seismic vibrations. The tremors were not recorded at the observatory. A scientist said only tremors of an intensity of above 2.8 on the Richter scale get recorded.

The NGRI scientists said there was no need for panic as such vibrations are a common occurrence. - Times of India.

Tall buildings in Delhi will come crashing down if a strong earthquake occurs in the northwest region of the Himalayas, warns a research seismologist who had predicted the Sumatran quake that caused the deadly tsunami in 2004.

UPDATE: Delhi's High-Rises Vulnerable to Himalayan Quakes - Government Ignores Warnings!

Buildings taller than 17 metres in the nation’s capital are vulnerable even though the city is more than 300 km away from the Uttarakhand-Himachal region where scientists expect the next high magnitude earthquake, Pune-based Arun Bapat told IANS. Bapat, formerly head of the earthquake engineering department at the Central Water and Power Research Station, says his warning is based on a careful analysis of damage caused by the 7.9 magnitude Gujarat earthquake that occurred Jan 26, 2001, with its epicentre near Bhuj. “Maximum destruction from an earthquake is normally confined to an area of 20 to 30 km radius from the epicentre,” Bapat told IANS. “However, in the case of the Bhuj quake, extensive damage was caused in Ahmedabad, which is about 320 km from Bhuj.” While tall buildings in Ahmedabad collapsed, the damage was minimal to buildings that had only two or three floors, he says. The “distance effect” – where the damage is felt far away from the epicentre — is characteristic of “Rayleigh waves” produced during an earthquake, explains Bapat.

He said there are about 100 tall buildings in the Delhi municipal area and an equal number in the nearby areas of Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ghaziabad, all of which need strengthening to protect against Rayleigh waves. Unlike the “P” and “S” waves that travel through the body of the earth and cause damage close to the epicentre, the Rayleigh waves roll along the surface of the earth just like waves on the ocean and cause damage at a distance — typically between 150 to 550 km from the epicentre, he says. The damage due to Rayleigh waves occur at a distance because the “amplitude” or strength of these waves is higher far away from the epicentre than closer to it, says Bapat. A situation similar to what happened in Ahmedabad during the Bhuj earthquake will be repeated in Delhi if an earthquake of magnitude 7.5 or more occurs in Himachal or Uttarakhand, he says. “Rayleigh waves from such an earthquake would definitely cause heavy damage to tall structures in Delhi and the entire National Capital Region (NCR),” he told IANS.

According to Bapat, despite the Bhuj earthquake – that wreaked havoc in distant Ahmedabad — the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has not revised the seismic code for tall structures to take into account the likely effect of Rayleigh waves. The BIS code only provides guidelines for design and construction of buildings to protect them from the adverse effects of “S” waves but not Rayleigh waves, he said. According to Bapat, during the 8.1 magnitude Mexican earthquake on Sep 19, 1985, Mexico City suffered extensive damage although the epicentre of this earthquake was located at a distance of about 530 km on the Pacific coast. Again the 8.0 magnitude earthquake witnessed by Pakistan Oct 8, 2005, destroyed the tall buildings in Islamabad although the epicentre of this quake was about 150 km from the Pakistani capital. These examples from the recent past in addition to the experience of Delhi’s Qutab Minar during the powerful earthquake in the Himalayas Sep 1, 1803 — when two upper floors of the 72-metre tall structure were dislodged — are enough to give an idea of the “distance effect” on tall structures, Bapat said.

Mexico revised its seismic code after the 1985 earthquake damage and many countries including the United States, China and Japan have taken steps to protect the tall structures from possible damage due to Rayleigh waves, Bapat said. “But the BIS is yet to initiate any action about revision of the seismic code in India,” he said. “If no action is taken immediately, it is quite possible that the scenarios at Mexico City and Ahmedabad may be repeated in the NCR of Delhi.” Not only Delhi but all cities located at a vulnerable distance from potential epicentres of large magnitude earthquakes should make suitable provisions in the seismic codes, he said. Other vulnerable cities which could see damage to tall structures from large magnitude earthquakes in northeast India are Kolkata as well as Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh, says Bapat. “Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan could suffer from large magnitude earthquakes in the Himalayas and Hindukush while Mumbai and Karachi could possibly suffer damage due to a tsunami produced by an earthquake in the Makran coast.” (IANS) - NVO News.

The ramshackle neighborhoods of northeast Delhi are home to 2.2 million people packed along narrow alleys. Buildings are made from a single layer of brick. Extra floors are added to dilapidated buildings not meant to handle their weight. Tangles of electrical cables hang precariously everywhere. If a major earthquake struck India's seismically vulnerable capital, these neighborhoods — India's most crowded — would collapse in an apocalyptic nightmare. Waters from the nearby Yamuna River would turn the water-soaked subsoil to jelly, which would intensify the shaking. The Indian government knows this and has done almost nothing about it. An Associated Press examination of government documents spanning five decades reveals a pattern of warnings and recommendations that have been widely disregarded. Successive governments made plans and promises to prepare for a major earthquake in the city of 16.7 million, only to abandon them each time. The Delhi government's own estimates say nine out of every 10 buildings in the city are at risk of moderate or significant quake damage, yet the basic disaster response plan it had promised to complete nearly three years ago remains unfinished, there are nearly no earthquake awareness drills in schools and offices and tens of thousands of housing units are built every year without any earthquake safety checks.

Fearing many buildings could lie in ruins after a quake, the Delhi government began work in 2005 with U.S. government assistance to reinforce just five buildings — including a school and a hospital — it would need to begin a rudimentary relief operation to deal with the dead, wounded and homeless. Six years later, only one of those buildings is earthquake-ready. "At the end of the day, people at the helm of affairs are not doing anything," said Anup Karanth, an earthquake engineering expert. In its attitudes to disaster preparedness India is like many other poor nations — aware of the danger but bogged down by both sheer inertia and more immediate demands on its resources. But Delhi faces immense earthquake risks. Last September, two minor jolts sent thousands of scared residents into the streets, and experts say a big one looms on the horizon. As far back as 1960, after a moderate quake cut power and plunged Delhi — then a city of 2.7 million — into darkness, the Geological Survey of India advised that all large buildings in the capital needed to have a plan for earthquake safety. A series of reports by other agencies have expanded on that conclusion in recent years, but both the city and national governments have ignored almost all of the recommendations.

Some reports were ignored because of sheer apathy, others because of shifting priorities. In a city and country growing at lightning speed with huge problems of poverty and hunger that need more immediate solutions, earthquake preparedness has simply never been at the top of the list. Some plans begun with good intentions simply fell by the wayside. That's what happened to the 2005 plan to prepare five important buildings in the capital for an earthquake. Government engineers were sent to California to train. But the following year — with only the school made earthquake ready — all the engineers were taken off the project. They were reassigned to build stadiums for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, an athletic competition held in Delhi, said M. Shashidhar Reddy, the vice chairman of India's National Disaster Management Agency. The scale of the problem "really hasn't sunk into the minds of the people," Reddy said. Just last year, a Delhi government agency ordered all new home buyers to get a building safety certificate that would mark their homes as structurally sound before registering property. But it later withdrew the order, saying there weren't enough engineers trained to conduct such inspections. "That's like saying let's not have any traffic rules because we don't have enough policemen," said Hari Kumar, who heads Geohazards India, an organization that promotes earthquake awareness.

India, a still developing country plagued by corruption, isn't alone in being unprepared. More than 80 percent of deaths from building collapses in earthquakes in the last three decades occurred in corrupt and poor countries, according to a 2011 study published in the science journal Nature. The study by Roger Bilham, a geologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Nicholas Ambraseys, a civil and environmental engineer at Imperial College London, compared the loss of life in two magnitude 7.0 earthquakes in 2010. In Haiti, 300,000 died; in New Zealand none did, though a subsequent 6.1 quake there in early 2011 killed 182. New Zealand, a developed nation, tied for first as the least corrupt in Transparency International's most recent Corruption Perceptions Index. Much poorer Haiti came in 175th out of 178 countries. In Turkey, which ranked 61st, a 2010 report revealed that the earthquake-prone nation had failed to enforce stricter building codes put in place after a 1999 earthquake killed 18,000 people. Last year, two earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 5.7 flattened some 2,000 buildings, killed 644 people and left thousands homeless. In contrast, Japan, which was 14th on the corruption scale, requires that all structures meet a 1981 building code and offers subsidies to retrofit buildings to meet more stringent guidelines set in 1995. About 75 percent of homes and public buildings meet the newer standards.

In India, which ranked 95th, contractors routinely flout regulations, use substandard material and add illegal floors to buildings, while bribing government inspectors to look the other way, said Reddy, the disaster management official. A 2001 quake in the western state of Gujarat killed more than 13,000. Delhi, which sits near a highly seismically active area, is ranked four out of five on a seismic threat scale used in India. Geologists believe the Central Himalayan Gap, a 310-mile (500 kilometer) stretch between Nepal and India, is ripe for a major quake. A 6.8 quake along the fault in March 1999 damaged many buildings in Delhi, just 125 to 300 miles (200 to 500 kilometers) from the gap. Studies show such a large buildup of energy that a shifting of the tectonic plates could cause an 8.7-magnitude earthquake, Bilham said. Experts also fear the potential damage from a smaller quake closer to the capital. The city lies between two fault lines, and a 4.2 quake in September woke up residents, with many fleeing their buildings. The same month, a magnitude 6.8 quake in India's remote northeast was also felt in the capital. Either type of quake would cause moderate damage to an estimated 85.5 percent of Delhi's buildings and severe damage to another 6.5 percent, Delhi's disaster management authority said in a 2010 vulnerability assessment. It could also open cracks in the ground several centimeters wide and spread "fear and panic," the report said.

It was India's Department of Meteorology that found northeast Delhi particularly vulnerable in a never-released 2005 study obtained by the AP. That "microzone" study divided the city into nine segments to evaluate the possible impact of an earthquake in each. While the microzone study is a positive step, the report is only rudimentary and most builders haven't even heard of it, said earthquake engineering expert Karanth, who as a student lived through the Gujarat quake. India has developed national standards for constructing earthquake-resistant buildings, but they are not mandatory and widely ignored, said Kumar of Geohazards. Meanwhile, many residents don't realize the danger, or wrongly believe they are safe from it. When Karanth decided to buy an apartment in 2010, he picked a builder who promised to deliver an earthquake-resistant building. He visited the site often, took photographs of the construction and talked to the engineers in charge. Last year, he realized the project had none of the promised earthquake safety features. "This is not one or two apartments that I'm talking about. These are thousands of apartment units being constructed," he said. He complained and demanded an explanation. Instead, the construction company offered to give him back his deposit. - CBS News.