About the data

Source: World Data Centre for Seismology, Denver (NEIC)

Magnitude: definition

Potentially affected People

The population in the area of this earthquake if 179 people/km².

The earthquake occurred at 8h local time. At this time a day, more people are at work and therefore more vulnerable to collapsing office buildings. During traffic hours, people can be affected by collapsing bridges and other road infrastructure.

About the data

Population data: derived from the LandScan 2002 dataset provided by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which disaggregated census data into pixels of ~1km² (or 30 arc seconds).

Damage

In general, earthquakes of magnitude 7 to 8  are classified as Major earthquakes. They can cause serious damage over areas greater than 100 kilometers across.

About the data

This damage assessment is based on the average damage of earthquakes over a 100 year period as compiled by USGS. The information is not specific to this earthquake.

Resilience and Vulnerability

ECHO Intervention Priority Ranking for Pakistan
Rank: 11/132
Overall situation
Human Development
Human Poverty
Exposure to Major Disasters
Natural Disasters
Conflicts
Humanitarian effects of population movement
Refugees
Internally Displaced People
Health and Nutrition
Undernourishment
Mortality rates
Donor contributions
Official Development assistance
Source ECHO Key: Bad - Medium - Good - No data

Resilience is the capacity of the population to cope with a hazard. Since much of investments in earthquake preparedness and available funds for quick response is related to household income, the GDP per capita can be used as a rough indicator of resilience.

Pakistan has a GDP per capita of 507 PPP$ (Parity Purchasing Power Dollar, about 1 Euro) and is therefore part of the low level income countries. Therefore, the earthquake happened in an area of low resilience.

Based on the combination of 9 indicators, ECHO attributes Pakistan a high vulnerability.

About the data

Exposure

Both conditions for survival and conditions for delivering aid strongly depend on the current weather and temperature. The following graphs show the current and forecast weather.
Current weather conditions and forecasts at earthquake location (lat: 34.432 - long: 73.537)

More detailed observations at closest weather station (Muzaffarabad): WeatherByWeb - NOAA

About the data

Source: www.calle.com/world. The data is not very reliable, but it gives an indication for remote regions where more detailed information is not available. The data is interpolated for the given latitude and longitude from the closest airport weather stations.

Secondary effects

Probability of secondary effects:

• Landslides: The maximum slope in the area of the earthquake is 75.565% and the maximum altitude is 5081 m. Since this is a high slope, the risk of earthquake induced landslides is high. Note, however, that the slope data is not reliable on a local scale, while landslides depend very much on local topography, soil and meteorological conditions.
• Nuclear power plants: The following nuclear installations are near the epicenter: CHASNUPP (273km)
• Tsunami: JRC is currently not modelling probability of tsunami generation. Please refer to NOAA's tsunami alert system for information on tsunamis in the Pacific Ocean: http://tsunami.gov/. However, for earthquakes in the ocean and with magnitude larger than 6.5, the propagation of a potential tsunami is modelled below.
  
    The earthquake did not happen in an ocean basin.

About the data

Landslides: slope and altitude are derived from the gtopo30 dataset provided by USGS. The thresholds used for landslide related slope classes are: 0-30% - low risk (green), 30-60% medium risk (orange), 60-100% high risk (red).

Nuclear radiation: the distance to nuclear installations is evaluated based on a 1999 UN dataset containing the location of nuclear plants in the world. If plants are near, the alert is automatically orange. Note that the location of plants is approximate with errors of up to 100km.

Tsunami: The JRC Tsunami model (http://tsunami.jrc.it/model) can be used solely to have a first estimate of the Tsunami wave propagation time. It does not predict predict the occurrence, the initial or final height of the wave, its run-up or the inundation depth.

Description

The earthquake happened in Pakistan, 91km from the city of Islamabad. The nearest populated places are Muzaffarabad (11km), Balgiran (13km), Bajmohari (12km), Gran (14km).

It is a region with a maximum altitude of 5081 m.

About the data

Maps and description of location are based on Global Discovery data, provided by Europa Technology. The dataset is based on VMAP0 and is at scale 1:1.000.000.

Getting there and away

The nearest civilian airport (Muzaffarabad) is at 10km from the epicenter. See the map for more details.

The estimated geographical coordinates of the earthquake are: 34.432 North and 73.537 East.

Dynamic Maps

Mapping material available on the DMA for Pakistan:

• Interactive Country map: http://dma.jrc.it/services/dmaexplorer/?Country=Pakistan
• Interactive Event map: http://dma.jrc.it/services/DSS/Earthquakes/mapeq.asp?ID=14081

image area: approx. 130x90km2

About this feedback

The "Follow-up information and expert feedback" section is not generated automatically by the Earthquake Alert Tool, but is created manually. All users can feed back information about this earthquake, which will be displayed immediately.

Note: this feedback is for information only, for and from the disaster relief community. JRC is not responsible for the content and will not reply.