The Beginning

     After the USPS lost my passport and visa, I finally recieved it the day before we were supposed to leave for India, and was able to travel with the rest of the group.  We left furman at 8 am thursday morning, and left the greenville/spartanburg airport (GSP) at about 11 am.  From there we flew to Washington D.C. and split into two groups to fly to Frankfort, Germany.  I was in the first group that flew out at 3:30 pm, and the second group left D.C. at 5:30 pm, and met us in Frankfort.  I was able to get a few hours of sleep as we crossed the Atlantic.  After arriving in Germany, we found our gate, and got some breakfast.  For four sausage, egg, and cheese biscuits, and two orange juices, it was $17, quite a bit more expensive than in the US.  Ryan and I decided to get some more sleep on the terminal benches.  After sleeping for who knows how long, a german police officer woke me from my slumber and demanded to see my passport, but didn't even glance at Ryan, who was sleeping right next to me.  After being woken up, I walked over to see the rest of the group, and got my belongings together to board the flight to Chennai.  The flight to Chennai was pretty similar to the flight to frankfort, except that as we were decending into Chennai, a plane that had just landed blew its tire out on the runway, so we had to accened back up into the air and circle Chennai.  When it became apparent that our plane would run out of fuel before the plane on the runway would be moved, the pilot and crew decided to fly the plane to Bangalore so we could refuel and wait till it was safe to return to Chennai.  After a two to three hour detour, we landed in Chennai and were met by the drivers form Madras Christian College (MCC).  The drive to MCC gave us our first taste of India, and even after six weeks of intense preperation, it was nothing like I had expected.  What I was shocked most by, was the piles of trash lining the streets, the run down buildings, and the amount of people out and about at four in the morning.  The drive was only about 30 minutes, and it was just getting light when we arrived at MCC, ending out 36 hour, 36 minute, and 36 second trip to the other side of the world. 

       In an attempt to acclimate myselft to the new time zone, I decided to stay up until it was night time again.  After breakfast, groups of us took walks around the campus.  We saw a tree covered in giant fruit bats, a family of deer, one of which had huge antlers, and we saw a group of Indians playing cricket.  After the walk, the guys hung out in my room, listented to music and juggled the soccer ball for a few hours.  Later in the afternoon, five of us decided to leave the campus and see what was outside the walls.  Right outside of the gate is a very busy street, there are no lines on the street, and it is pretty much just chaos.  After observing the locals for a few minutes, we found that the technique to cross the street is to just walk leisurely, and assume that all of the traffic will either stop, or swerve around you.  And it worked for us!  We walked around a little bit, and being the only white people for miles, we were greeted with stares, honks, and waves.  Returing to campus, I was overcome by my tiredness, and fell asleep for about five hours.  Dr. Suresh woke me up for dinner, and just as all the meals have been, it was delicious.  After dinner, I showered and went to sleep.  In the morning (today) we woke up, had breakfast, and walked to the market.  As we walked through the market, we moved through sections that smelled terrible, delicious, and just weird.  It was divided into sections of fruits, vegitables, fish, and clothes.  Once I get rupees, I plan on going back to get some exotic fruits.

Himalayan Hazards (academic)

The article “Himalayan Seismic Hazard” discusses how India’s basement rock flexes and slides beneath the Himalayas during large earthquakes.  This is similar to what happens in deep ocean trenches when plates converge rapidly, causing the ocean floor to bend downward, and thus create earthquakes.  As India and Tibet converge at a rate of 20+3 mm per year, the stress is not spread out over the entire plate.  80 percent of strain is absorbed by a 50 km stretch along the southern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.  Small earthquakes and uplift are most common in this region.  The rest of the Himalayan mountain range absorbs the remaining 20 percent of the strain.  The accumulation of stress, from the converging plates, is measured in potential slip, and on average the potential slip of the region is about two meters per year, which is released during periodic earthquakes (Bilham, et al., 2001).  The article “Great Himalayan Earthquakes and the Tibetan Plateau,” argues that the the region accumulating the stress from plate convergence, and then releasing it, is much broader than the previous paper suggested, but only one fifth of that region actively engages with the earthquake cycle (Feldl, Bilham, 2006).

During great earthquakes, the displacement of formerly adjacent points on opposite side of a fault average to be about 4 meters (Bilham, et al., 2001).  However, the average slip may not be a reflection of the potential slip, or stress, that the plate is under, and depending on the the length of the rupture during an earthquake, all of the stress may not necessarily be released.  Rupture lengths shorter than 150 km leave significant strain in southern Tibet, thus shortening the renewal time for another earthquake in that region.  For ruptures longer than 150 km, generally all the strain is released (Feldl, Bilham, 2006).

Because of the lack of any great earthquakes in the region over the past three centuries, it is now estimated that the slip potential for the for the Himalayan region is greater than 6 m.  And in some isolated areas it is possible that there has not been any major earthquakes for the past five to seven centuries, which could cause a slip of more than 10 m (Bilham, et al., 2001).

The lack of any great earthquakes in the Himalayan region over the past few decades, and in some areas, centuries, the buildup of stress on the plate, along with exponential population growth, could spell disaster for some of the major cities.  1950 was the last great Himalayan earthquake, and since then the population has doubled, and since 1905 the population has increased by a factor of 10.  The 1905 earthquake killed close to 20,000 people in the region, today about 50 million people are at risk in the same region (Bilham, et al., 2001).

The lack of infrastructure strong enough to withstand a serious earthquake, and loose building codes, make the situation even more dangerous.  Were a great earthquake to strike the himalayan region today, it would likely lead to the death of 200,000 people, and hundreds of thousands more injured (Bilham, et al., 2001).  The countries of India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Pakistan need to drastically strengthen the infrastructure, and the strength of buildings, so as to minimize death and injury.  And although one might think that a region would be safe after a major earthquake, due to rates of renewal time for plate convergence, Feldl and Bilham’s model shows that great earthquakes can be followed by major earthquakes much more rapidly than one might assume for typical rates of plate convergence.  An example of this is the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Nepal in 1833, and then in 1934, an 8.2 magnitude earthquake struck Nepal and Bihar.  Because of this phenomena, areas struck by earthquakes cannot assume that the next one is centuries away, and must rebuild infrastructure to withstand the force of more earthquakes.

Bilham, R., Vinod, K., & Molnar, P. (2001). 22 himalayan seismic hazard. Science, 293, 1442-1444.

Feldl, N., & Bilham, R. D. (2006). Great himalayan earthquakes and the tibetan plateau. Nature, 444, 165-170. Retrieved from http://cires.colorado.edu/~bilhamHimalayanEarthquakes/ natureHimalaya06.pdf