Did Kathmandu shift? Questions and Answers
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The tremor which struck Nepal on Saturday, killing more than 3,500 people, may have caused a land area around the capital Kathmandu to budge by several metres, experts say.
Q: Did Kathmandu move?
Possibly about three metres (10 feet) southward, according to initial analysis of seismological data obtained from sound waves which travel through Earth after an earthquake, said University of Cambridge tectonics expert James Jackson.
An area of about 150 kilometres (93 miles) long and 50 km wide in a fault running underneath the Kathmandu valley, gave in after decades of pressure, causing rocks on top of the fault to slip southward over the rock underneath it.
The fault lies between two tectonic plates -- one bearing India pushing northward into a plate carrying Europe and Asia at a rate of about two centimetres (0.8 inches) per year -- the process that created the Himalayas in the first place.
Saturday's lurch likely saw the Kathmandu region rise (in elevation) by about half a metre, while the area to its north sank by about the same margin.
Mount Everest was likely be too far east to have been affected.
The shifts may be large enough to necessitate adjustments to high-precision world maps.
Q: How does the quake compare to others?
Japan's 2011 Tohoku earthquake saw undersea plate movements of about 50 metres, said Paul Tapponnier from Singapore's Earth Observatory, and large land shifts along the shoreline as well.
The largest earthquake in the Himalayas hit Assam in 1950, displacing portions of land by almost 30 metres.
The latest quake had a magnitude of 7.8, much less violent than the 8.2-8.5 typical for the area, said Tapponnier, and likely not strong enough to have relieved all the stress accumulated along the fault.
Q: When will the next one be?
One thing the experts agree on, is that there will be more major quakes in the stricken region. What nobody knows, is when.
According to Gary Gibson of the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences, earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 7.5 have shaken Kathmandu every 100 years on average over the last 1,000 years. But the intervals between them varied from 23 years to 273 years.
Just a part of the fault gives in every time, making the adjoining area unstable in turn, and setting up conditions for the next quake, said the experts.
Other photos showed a runway and ship harbour taking shape on Fiery Cross, also in the Spratlys, which was little more than a reef when work began late last year.
- China projects its power -
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Similar work is taking place at a handful of other sites, according to defence analysts, who say the construction drive will give China a permanent forward presence far out at sea from which to project its growing power.
The closing statement by Malaysia -- which holds the rotating chair of 10-member ASEAN this year -- instructs the region's foreign ministers to "urgently address this matter" under dialogue mechanisms set up between the bloc and China.
But it stopped just short of a call by the Philippine foreign secretary, who on Sunday challenged ASEAN to "finally stand up" to Beijing by demanding an immediate halt to the reclamation.
Albert del Rosario had warned his regional peers in Kuala Lumpur that China was "poised to consolidate de facto control" of the sea.
Malaysia brushed aside suggestions of a stern response that could antagonise China, but its Prime Minister Najib Razak appealed to Beijing to avoid destabilising actions.
"We hope to be able to influence China that it is also to their interest not to be seen as confronting ASEAN and that any attempt to destabilise this region will not benefit China either," he said.
Despite its unity rhetoric, ASEAN members have diverging agendas, and the bloc avoids pushing China too hard on behalf of its members.
Beijing holds immense trade and diplomatic leverage over ASEAN countries, most of which have no stake in the maritime disputes.
The Philippines and Vietnam have experienced the most direct face-offs with China at sea, including a number of tense confrontations in recent years.
Ian Storey, an analyst with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said the ASEAN statement was "quite strong" compared to mild past versions.
But he added: "The statement will do absolutely nothing to dissuade China from completing its reclamation programme."
China on Monday said it was willing to work with ASEAN but defended the island-building as being within its "sovereign" territory.
"The accusations made by some countries against China are not reasonable," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino told fellow regional leaders on Monday that China's actions violate a non-binding 2002 pledge by rival maritime claimants to avoid actions that inflame tensions.
China also is widely believed to be dragging its feet in discussions on turning the earlier pledge into a binding Code of Conduct, so that it can buy time to cement its control at sea.
Aquino said Beijing's actions "pose a threat to the freedom of global commerce and navigation" and cause irreparable harm to the marine environment.
