The day the earth moved: Kathmandu shifts three metres in 30 seconds
The Nepalese city of Kathmandu jolted three metres in just 30 seconds when a deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck on Saturday.
The massive earthquake collapsed historic buildings, triggered avalanches on Mount Everest and claimed more than 2500 lives, with the death toll expected to rise in the coming days.
The Australian Red Cross said more bodies are being pulled from the ruins every hour.
Saturday's earthquake, which struck close to Kathmandu, was the worst to hit Nepal in 80 years.
University of Colorado geologist Roger Bilham, a world renowned expert on Himalayan earthquakes, said: "A massive block of Earth's crust, roughly 75 miles long (120km) and 37 miles (60km) wide, lurched 10 feet (3m) to the south Saturday over the course of 30 seconds. Riding atop this block of the planet was the capital of Nepal – Kathmandu – and millions of Nepalese."
Nepal and the rest of the Himalayas are particularly prone to earthquakes because of the collision of the Indian and Eurasia plates.
An 6.8 magnitude quake hit eastern Nepal in August 1988 killing 721 people, and a magnitude 8.1 quake killed 10,700 people in Nepal and eastern India in 1934.
Mr Bilham said this one was relatively shallow, which intensifies surface shaking, and its epicentre was a lot closer to the densely populated Kathmandu than the 1934 temblor.
"The earthquake ruptured under the city, very close to the city, so this is as bad as our worst case scenario," Mr Bilham explained.
Susan Hough, a geologist with the US Geological Survey, said it was difficult to gauge the full scale of the disaster but predicted the number of dead would climb steadily.
"I expect that there's devastation scattered all around Nepal that we're not even glimpsing at this point," she said.
Hough said it is difficult to predict precisely where and when a natural disaster might occur, but she said this one had been long-anticipated.
For years, experts who monitor seismic hazards have kept a list of the cities most vulnerable to a catastrophic earthquake, Washington Post reports.
Nepal, a nation locked between India and China, has always been high on the risk list.
"We knew it was going to happen. We saw it in '34," Hough said. "The earthquakes we expect to happen do happen."
Experts said urbanisation in Kathmandu had exacerbated the devastation wreaked by the earthquake.
Many of the new buildings are not built to withstand the strong motion of a quake.
"It was clearly a disaster in the making that was getting worse faster than anyone was able to make it better," Hough said.
The rescue effort continues despite a series of aftershocks, including a 6.7 magnitude aftershock that jolted the impoverished nation on Sunday.
International aid groups and governments have sent emergency crews to reinforce those scrambling to find survivors in the devastated capital, Kathmandu, and in rural areas cut off by blocked roads and patchy phone networks.
Morning news break – April 27
