The 26th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) event will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, from the 22nd of June to the 2nd of July 2015.
Amongst the several sessions taking place, there is one dedicated to the recent Nepal Earthquake
The following notification is taken from http://www.iugg2015prague.com/iaspei-symposia.htm
IASPEI-IUGG Symposium on Nepal earthquake at IUGG2015
Saturday June 27, 15:00-16:40
The Nepal earthquake of 25 April 2015, Mw7.8, caused major human, physical and property losses in the region around Kathmandu and in the sparsely populated area around in the central valley of Nepal and destroyed historical and cultural treasures in Kathmandu and its surroundings. More than 8,800 people were killed and more than 23,000 injured, in an area inhabited by about 8 million people. The estimated damage intensity was about VIII in the epicentral region (Gorkha) and around VI-VII in the city of Kathmandu and Bhaktapur (on the EMS-98 scale). The economic loss is assessed to be around 5 to 15 billion US$, a massive loss for this country with a GDP of about 20 billion US$ and an average GDP-per-capita of just over 400 US$ in 2014. Extensive damage occurred also in the northern Gange Valley of India.
A Special Symposium organized by IASPEI and IUGG will review all aspects of this tragic event, including the history of catastrophic events in the area, the active tectonics of the Himalayan front, the source properties of the main events, engineering considerations on the damage and risk in the area, the social consequences and the prospects for future reconstruction and mitigation of seismic risk for the populations hit by the earthquake. The Symposium will present the first seismological and field investigations performed after the April 25 event. The collision between the India and Eurasia plates has produced the Earth’s largest mountains, its largest plateau, and a complex plate boundary fault system with a tragic history of great damaging earthquakes. Our understanding of the present earthquake hazard in the region depends on a good understanding of the plate tectonic interactions, the details of the fault system between India and Eurasia, and the interaction among those faults. The 25 April 2015 Mw 7.8 earthquake occurred on the Himalayan subduction interface and ruptured unilaterally about 150 km toward the ESE, with maximum slip of about ~ 5 m. The slip zone lies north of Kathmandu, and while strong ground velocities were experienced, the rupture was relatively smooth, reducing ground accelerations and the potential damage to low-rise buildings. The largest aftershocks were located eastward of the rupture, and caused additional disruption owing to the enhanced vulnerability after the first mainshock. Early field investigations provide an overview on the behavior of the urban and rural buildings, historical buildings and cultural heritage, infrastructural and lifeline damages, and enable to provisionally evaluate the effectiveness of past risk reduction programs in Nepal, where lack of code compliance and low quality of building construction appears to be the major reason for the high losses.
The Symposium will take place on Saturday June 27, 15:00-16:40, and will consist of invited presentations, with the following program:
- 15:00 Harsh Gupta, Seismic hazard and risk along the Himalayan front
- 15:20 Kevin Furlong & Matthew Herman, Geodynamics of the Himalayan collision and the 2015 Nepal earthquake
- 15:40 Thorne Lay, The Nepal seismic sequence of spring 2015: seismic sources
- 16:00 Mohsen Ghafory-Ashtiany, Mehdi Zare & Salar Arian, The Nepal seismic sequence of spring 2015: engineering issues
- 16:20 Amot Dixit, The Nepal seismic sequence of spring 2015: consequences, recovery, preparedness
Chair: Domenico Giardini, IASPEI President
