Abstract
A BRIEF notice of this great earthquake, based on the earliest reports, was inserted in our last issue (p. 94). Later accounts add considerably to the first estimates of the loss of life and of the extent of the disturbed area. It is clear that the number of deaths will amount to several thousand—in Monghyr alone, 4,000 are reported as killed. The epicentre, given by the seismographic records at Kew and Bombay, lies in lat. 26.8° N., long. 86.3° E., or a short distance to the east of the towns (Patna, Muzaffarpur, Monghyr, etc.) which suffered most from the earthquake. Thus, it would seem that the crust movement started a few miles east of Darbhanga and spread rapidly westwards for fifty miles or more. The distances from the epicentre of some of the places from which reports of the shock come are so great that it is only their close grouping that justifies their acceptance. Bombay is afcbut 970 miles from the epicentre and Madras 980. Still farther to the south, and somewhat isolated, are Madura (1,250 miles) and Aleppey in Travancore (1,330 miles). If we assume the disturbed area to be bounded by a circle passing through Madras, it would contain three million square miles/ The area included within the isoseismal of intensity 4 of the Kansu earthquake of December 16, 1920, was about 2J million square miles, so that the area actually shaken must have been of the same order of magnitude as that disturbed by the recent earthquake.
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Indian Earthquake of January 15. Nature 133, 131 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133131c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133131c0