January 18, 2011 Earthquake: Garhi Khairo, Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan

Reference #1053:

Felt Reports

One person killed at Garhi Khairo and two people died from heart attacks, one each at Jacobabad and Quetta. Several people injured and at least 200 buildings damaged (V) in Balochistan, expecially in the Dalbandin area. Damage also occurred in Sindh and in southern Punjab. Felt (IV) at Bahawalpur, Karachi and Quetta; (III) at Hyderabad, Islamabad, Khairpur and Lahore. Slight damage occurred in parts of western India. Felt (IV) at Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, New Delhi and Pilani; (III) at Amritsar,

Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur and Noida. Felt (IV) at Chenaran and (III) at Bandar `Abbas and Zahedan, Iran. Also felt (IV) at Ra's al Khaymah and (III) at Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai and Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Felt (III) at Kabul and Kandahar, Afghanistan, at Manama, Bahrain and at Muscat, Oman. Felt (II) at

Doha, Qatar and at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Felt in 11 countries of southern Asia from Ashgabat, Turkmenistan and Samarqand, Uzbekistan to Bangalore, India and from Haridwar, India to Buraydah, Saudi Arabia.

Tectonic Summary

This major earthquake occurred as a result of normal faulting within the lithosphere of the subducted Arabian plate. The present-day tectonic environment of Pakistan is determined by the motions of the Arabian and Indian plates north-northeast with respect to the Eurasian plate at velocities of 35-40 mm/y at the longitude of this earthquake. Arabian-plate lithosphere is subducted beneath the Eurasia plate at the Makran coast of Pakistan and Iran, and becomes progressively deeper to the north. The subducted Arabian plate is known to be seismically active to depths of about 160 km. The frequency of moderate and large earthquakes within the subducted Arabian plate is not high compared with the frequency of such events in some other subducted plates worldwide, but several earthquakes have occurred within this slab in the region of today's event over the past 30 years, including a magnitude 6.7 shock two hundred kilometers to the southwest in 1983.

Reference #9240:

QUETTA, Pakistan, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- About 200 mud-walled houses were damaged by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake in southwestern Pakistan, officials said Wednesday.

Ahmed Kamal of the National Disaster Management Authority told CNN there were no reports of death or injury. Hundreds of tents, blankets and meals were sent to the area.

But an official at Quetta's Civil Hospital said a female cardiac patient suffered a fatal heart attack during the tremor... It was felt all over Pakistan as well as India and Iran, and even by people who posted on Twitter from the Persian Gulf.