FIVE major earthquakes strike Asia in just 72 hours

Several buildings were damaged or destroyed and at least six people are believed to be trapped under homes in Mashiki. Local reports said one woman was rescued in a critical condition.

Scientists say there has been an above average number of significant earthquakes across south Asia and the Pacific since the start of the year.  The increased frequency has sparked fears of a repeat of the Nepal quake of 2015, where 8,000 people died, or even worse.

Roger Bilham, seismologist of University of Colorado, said: “The current conditions might trigger at least four earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude.  “And if they delay, the strain accumulated during the centuries provokes more catastrophic mega earthquakes.”

The earthquake happened at 2.20am (Singapore time) off Mindanao island.

Local authorities said there was no tsunami risk and that they had not received reports of casualties or damage.

In Japan, a number of buildings were destroyed by the powerful 6.4 magnitude quake.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency said the epicentre was in the Mashiki town in the Kumamoto prefecture.  Officials said the region’s nuclear facilities were not affected.

Vanuatu is on the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” one of the most seismic parts of the globe and known for its earthquakes and volcanoes. Seismologists say the Himalayan region is overdue for a tremor stronger than Nepal’s 7.9 strength quake last year.

Yesterday’s quakes take the total to nine across Asia in a period of just over three and a half months – nearly three every month.  Just five days ago, on April 10, six people died in Pakistan when a 6.6-magnitude quake hit Kabul with aftershocks in India.  Two days before, on April 8, there was a magnitude 4.2 earthquake in Nepal.  Nepal had suffered a larger 5.5 magnitude one on February 22.

A month before on January 20 there was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake in China, and 16 days earlier 11 people died when a 6.7-magnitude earthquake hit Manipur in India.

India’s disaster management experts from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in January an 8.2 magnitude quake was due in the already ruptured Himalayan region.

The 2011 Sikkim earthquake created more rupturs in the Himalayas, on top of those caused by previous quakes, and scientists have feared the area is continually weakening with each new quake.

India’s National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) says stress in the mountains of the north-east and the colliding of the Himalayan plate iand the Indo-Burmese plate in the to the puts the whole region on red alert.

Stresses locked in this area could be released, potentially causing a massive quake.  BK Rastogi, director general of the Ahmedabad-based Institute of Seismological Research, said: “An earthquake of the same magnitude is overdue. 

That may happen either today or 50 years from now in the region of the Kashmir, Himachal, Punjab and Uttrakhand Himalyas. “Seismic gaps have been identified in these regions. “The accumulation of stress is going on everywhere. But where it will reach the elastic limit, we don’t know nor also when. But what we do know is that it is happening everywhere.”