27 October 2015 Insurance

No significant losses expected from Afghanistan earthquake

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 struck north-eastern Afghanistan at 1:30pm local time but no significant losses are anticipated, according to catastrophe modelling firm AIR Worldwide.

The epicentre was located in the Hindu Kush mountain range, 45 km (28 miles) north of Alaqahdari-ye Kiran wa Munjan, Afghanistan, and 254 km (158 miles) north-northeast of Kabul, Afghanistan. The earthquake struck at a depth of 213 km (130 miles) and was felt in Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Because of exceedingly low penetration of insurance in the affected region, AIR does not expect significant insured losses from this event.

The overall economic loss is not expected to be high, however, the earthquake has caused devastating damage to the epicentral regions due to the poor construction of local buildings.

The full scope of the damage is not yet clear because the worst affected areas are not easily accessible, according to AIR.

A yellow alert was issued by the for estimated economic losses, meaning that some damage is possible and economic losses are expected to be less than 1 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product (GDP). The Inspector General of Police in Srinagar, India, stated that a highway overpass had been cracked and that bridges and buildings had also been damaged by the earthquake.

“The M7.5 event in Hindu Kush occurred in a seismically active plate boundary zone situated in the northern part of the Indian Plate at a depth of 213 km, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS),” said Dr Gerald Galgana, scientist at AIR Worldwide.

“This region is a curved arc characterised by intense mountain building and deep seismic events along the north-western part of the Tibetan Plateau, along the Pamir-Hindu Kush mountains of Tajikistan and north-eastern Afghanistan. The immediate epicentral region is situated at the western part of this collision zone, where the crust is unusually thick from the superposition and excessive deformation of rocks from different converging tectonic affinities.”

Galgana said the epicentral area is seismically most active along the entire Indian – Eurasian plate collision zone, especially at increased depth.

“This earthquake occurred at the location where large historic earthquake of magnitude 7 to 7.5 have repeatedly occurred in the last 100 years with 5 earthquakes of magnitude larger than 7.3 within a radius of about 60 km and in the depth range of 200 to 240 km. It seems a hotbed of seismogenic source of large earthquakes at this unusual depth along the boundary of two continental plates,” he said.

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