Srinagar, Aug 23: On Tuesday (August 20) morning, two back-to-back earthquakes shook the parts of Kashmir. The earthquake’s epicenter as per the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) was in north Kashmir’s Baramulla at a depth of just 5 kilometres.
As the people recovered from the shock, and resumed their days as normal, an unverified information started to spread over the Internet, especially X, and messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp, adding to panic.
The information spoke about a scientist warning of an earthquake of magnitude 9.0 hitting Kashmir in coming days. This made people anxious, and they kept posting about it, asking what should they do in such a situation.
However, Greater Kashmir analysed the information, reversed search the image, and established the fact, that the misinformation was generated from an article published by the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) last year.
A CIRES fellow, Roger Bilham had predicted “A magnitude 9.0 earthquake, though unexpected, is possible in Kashmir. Bilham and his team had studied rates of crustal deformation in the region for past eight years.
However, their prediction failed, as a year passed, and nothing of that sought happened.
Globally, it is impossible to predict earthquakes, even before minutes they rock a region.
This should be noted that Kashmir falls under the seismic zone IV, which is vulnerable to earthquakes.