8.2 magnitude earthquake may hit North India: All you need to know

Delhi: North India is at a risk of high intensity earthquakes, ranging 8.2 magnitude on the Richter Scale, Union Home Ministry's disaster management experts.

Reports have said that that the earthquakes could be of higher intensity than the one that struck Manipur and that the ring of fire is surrounding North India, especially the mountainous region.

Following is all that you need to know about it: (Courtesy - India Today)

- India, Bhutan, Nepal and  Myanmar impose a greater threat of high intensity earthquakes.

- The impact of the possible earthquake will stretch to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Delhi.

- They fall under the seismic Zone IV classification.

- Seismic waves are said to alter speed and intensity at the boundaries between layers below the earth's surface.

- Seismic waves due to earthquakes are of three types - Primary waves, Secondary waves and Surface waves.

- Both P and S waves travel through the interior of the Earth.

- Surface waves do not do so.

- P and S waves are also known as 'body waves'.

- Surface waves do not penetrate deep inside the Earth and provide little information about unapproachable terrain.

- Seismic waves are waves of energy that travel through the Earth.

- They travel both on the surface and through it.

- As a result of an earthquake, explosion, or a volcano, low-frequency acoustic energy is recorded.

- They are calculated by geophysicists, known as seismologists.

- The waves are recorded by a seismometer, hydrophone for water and accelerometer.

- But they are not always detectable by seismometers.

- Scientists have seismographs set up all over the world so that they can monitor movement of Earth's crust.