Earthquake…..the earth shakes…a jolt for few seconds and then it stops and you start getting calls and messages from your near and dear ones for the well-being and then you forget and move on. Do you ever think what is the force which causes the densest of all planets to shake?

Earthquakes shake our world every 11 seconds.

Throughout Earth’s four and a half billion year history, the hulking chunks of land have alternated between periods of combining into supercontinents like Pangea 300 million years ago and periods like today when they are moving apart. At the height of the age of dinosaurs, Pangea had broken into two giant continents, Laurasia and Gondwana, and India was a piece of Gondwana, in the Southern Hemisphere, attached to Antarctica and nestled between Africa and Australia.

Plate tectonics explain that the earth is composed of 7 major plates and many minor ones who are in constant motion. These plates are responsible for earthquakes, mountain formation etc.

Earthquakes are usually caused when rock underground suddenly breaks along a fault. This sudden release of energy causes the seismic waves that make the ground shake. When two blocks of rock or two plates are rubbing against each other, they stick a little. ... When the rocks break, the earthquake occurs.

When the Indian plate moves inside the Tibetan plate there is huge amount of energy formed because of friction which is accumulated beneath. This energy which is released along the fault line causes earthquake to happen….depending on the intensity of energy released the magnitude is high or low.

We are in a seismic zone as Indian plate is moving northwards and we are in the lap of huge lofty Himalayas.

So earthquake in sleep can be dangerous…be alert and shake enough to be safe.

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