Just two months ago Nepal was hit by another strong earthquake, causing widespread panic and casualties just over two weeks after a devastating one killed more than 8,800 people, injured 18,000 and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes.
The first earthquake that violently shook Kathmandu on April 25 and resulted in more than 8,000 deaths was not predicted, but it hardly came as a surprise to seismologists.
Nepal is forged by continental collision between the converging India and Eurasia tectonic plates.
Earthquakes here are a well-known by-product of the thickening of the Earth’s crust that occurs in response to enormous compressive stress at the margins of the two tectonic plates as they are squeezed together.
Like recent large and extremely deadly earthquakes – the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and the Sumatra earthquake in 2004 – the immediate focus was on rescue and humanitarian efforts rather than planning for another devastating earthquake that may or may not happen.
