October 26, 2015 Earthquake: Hindu Kush, Afghanistan

At least 115 people killed at Jalalabad and more than 4,000 homes severely damaged at Jarm. Felt (VI) at Bagrami and Jalalabad; (V) at Kabul and Mahmud-e Raqi. At least 280 people killed, 1,770 injured, 29,230 buildings destroyed and 79,893 damaged in northern Pakistan, mostly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Felt (VII) at Abbottabad and Wah; (VI) at Rawalpindi. Felt (V) at Amritsar, Badamibagh and Palwal, India and at Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Felt (III) at Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Felt (II) at Ghorahi and Kathmandu, Nepal; Doha, Qatar; Novosibirsk, Russia; Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Felt widely in northeastern Afghanistan, northwestern India and northern Pakistan. Also felt at Kashgar, China; Mashhad, Iran; Almaty and Shymkent, Kazakhstan; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Sanjwāl, Punjab, Pakistan - CDI: 8; Bhopalwala, Punjab, Pakistan - CDI: 7; Wah, Punjab, Pakistan - CDI: 7; Mardan, North-West Frontier, Pakistan - CDI: 7; Qunduz, Qunduz, Afghanistan - CDI: 7

Tectonic Summary

The Oct 26, 2015 M 7.5 earthquake near the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan (SW of Jarm) occurred as the result of reverse faulting at intermediate depths, approximately 210 km below the Hindu Kush Range in northeastern Afghanistan. Focal mechanisms indicate rupture occurred on either a near-vertical reverse fault or a shallowly dipping thrust fault. At the latitude of the earthquake, the India subcontinent moves northward and collides with Eurasia at a velocity of about 37 mm/yr

Active faults and their resultant earthquakes in northern Pakistan and adjacent parts of India and Afghanistan are the direct result of the convergence between the India and Eurasia plates. This collision is causes uplift that produces the highest mountain peaks in the world including the Himalayan, the Karakoram, the Pamir and the Hindu Kush ranges.

Earthquakes such as this event, with focal depths between 70 and 300 km, are commonly termed "intermediate-depth" earthquakes. Intermediate-depth earthquakes represent deformation within subducted lithosphere rather than at the shallow plate interfaces between subducting and overriding tectonic plates.

(above ref #13456)

A massive earthquake struck remote and impoverished regions of northern Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 263 people as it shook buildings across South Asia and knocked out power and communications to already-isolated areas. In the Afghan capital of Kabul, buildings shook for up to 45 seconds, walls cracked and cars rolled in the streets as electricity went out. At least 228 people were killed in Pakistan, with more than 1,000 injured, while Afghan officials reported 33 dead and more than 200 injured, and authorities in the Indian-controlled Kashmir region reported two deaths. Officials expected the casualty toll to rise as they reached the remote areas. Authorities struggled to reach the hardest-hit areas in Afghanistan near the epicenter (ref #11284)

At least 4,000 houses and compounds had been destroyed or damaged. (ref #11286)

Death: 272. Injured: 853. Destroyed house: 24,133. Damaged houses: 71,914. Comp to earthquake affectess: 11520.7 million ruppes (109.5 million USD)(ref# 12173)

Four persons, including three women died while 20 others were injured in Jammu and Kashmir, following the 7.5 magnitude earthquake that jolted northern India[...]40 residential houses in Kashmir Division and 13 in Jammu Division have been damaged besides some non-residential structures have also been damaged (ref# 12174)

At least 76 people were reported killed in Afghanistan[...] The service reported that 14 children had been injured in Tajikistan's Yovon district when stairs at a local school collapsed[...]"Some 1,500 homes have also been destroyed," Kunar Governor Wahidullah Kalimzai said on October 26 (ref #12175)