Do you sleep sensitively? And on New Year's Eve? Imagine that you were awakened by the noise of crumbling plaster, the creaking of a swinging chandelier, the ringing of Christmas toys … You wake up and see that the floor under you is walking with a shaker. And outside the window, birds cry alarmingly. This is not a shot from a science fiction film. This has become a frequent reality - the earthquake in Uzbekistan. For the full two months of this year, as many as nine of them happened in the country. And they literally began on the first of January. Of course, none of the recent earthquakes was devastating, no one was hurt. But the trend is alarming. What do revived bowels conceal in themselves? And what lesson did mankind have to learn after the famous Tashkent earthquake of 1966? This article will be devoted to our article.
Why is there high seismicity in Uzbekistan?
A fifth of the territory of this Central Asian country is mountains. They belong to the new alpine folding. Mountain building has not yet completed. The layers of the earth's crust are in motion. Although magma does not find a way out in volcanic eruptions, it makes itself felt. This is what causes frequent earthquakes in Uzbekistan. Sometimes the epicenter of tremors was located on the territory of the country, but it happened that it was located in neighboring Afghanistan. If we follow the history of earthquake observation, we will be convinced that Uzbekistan often became the scene of tragic disasters. Only in the twentieth century did several destructive tremors happen here. Tashkent actually experienced strong earthquakes three times - in 1866, 1868 and exactly one hundred years after the first - in April 1966. In Ferghana, underground bowels raged in 1823, and in Andijan - in 1889 and 1902.
History: Twenty Years Before Chernobyl
Perhaps April 26 is the fateful date for the USSR. But on this day of 1966, at half past five in the morning, when Tashkent was still sleeping peacefully, an earthquake occurred in Uzbekistan. Its magnitude was relatively small - only five points on the Richter scale. But since the epicenter of the earthquake was not deep, only three to five kilometers from the surface, it caused great damage. On the same morning, the shooting of completely destroyed Tashkent occupied the front pages of newspapers, broadcast from television news screens. L. Brezhnev and A. Kosygin with their retinue arrived in Uzbekistan.
Surprisingly, with all the destructiveness of the earthquake, only eight people died directly from it. This is because the seismic shocks were vertical rather than horizontal. With such fluctuations, there is a collapse of high-rise buildings, which at that time simply did not exist in the capital of Uzbekistan. The city was mainly one-story. Most of the injuries people received from falling tiles, bricks, pieces of plaster.
Earthquake aftermath
The central part of Tashkent at the end of April 1966 resembled Dresden after the bombing. To restore the city were thrown all the forces of the USSR. All republics of the Soviet Union contributed to raising Tashkent from the ruins. It was decided not to repair the old one-story mud houses, of which the capital of Uzbekistan consisted of before the disaster. The area of these residential quarters was completely cleared, soon new high-rise buildings appeared in their place. Streets and avenues of the transformed Tashkent began to bear the names of cities that helped him in difficult times. For three and a half years, the capital of Uzbekistan was completely rebuilt. But did the builders of tall buildings pay attention to the advice of seismologists? After all, then the leadership of the Soviet Union was faced with the question of quickly placing the population of a million-plus city - people left homeless due to the rampant elements.
Stormy bowels continue to gather human harvest
The next tragic earthquake in Uzbekistan occurred on July 21, 2011. The epicenter of seismic shocks was located forty kilometers from Ferghana. An earthquake of magnitude six was observed not only in Uzbekistan, but also in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. But there, fortunately, there were no casualties, although houses were destroyed. But in Uzbekistan, thirteen people became the victims of the earthquake. More than eighty people were injured in the collapse. In Tashkent, tremors were felt with a force of five points.
The earthquake of 2011 came to other cities of the republic. In Jizzakh and Termez, the tremors were four points, and in Samarkand - three. Big victims were avoided only because the epicenter of the earthquake was located deep - twelve kilometers from the surface. The element was not insidious: nature warned people about the impending disaster. On July 17, seismologists recorded a small earthquake. But no one attached importance to this fact.
Recent earthquakes in Uzbekistan
Seismological activity has intensified since last December. True, ordinary residents noticed this only on the night of the twenty-sixth. Immediately after midnight, there were several small but tangible tremors that lasted more than a minute. The next morning, the country's seismic service reported that an earthquake had occurred in Afghanistan, in the Hindu Kush mountains. Its magnitude at the epicenter was six on the Richter scale. But because of a distance of more than five hundred kilometers, the inhabitants of Uzbekistan felt it as tremors with a force of two points. This was only the first alarm bell. Since January 1 of this year, earthquakes have become more frequent in Uzbekistan. All of them are inconspicuous and, of course, not destructive. The dishes in the sideboards tinkle, the chandelier sways. But is it worth it to calm down?
Will the next earthquake in Uzbekistan be deadly?
The low power of the shocks that were recorded by seismologists this year should not mislead us. The thing is that the epicenters of all nine earthquakes were far from Tashkent. They took place on the territory of either Afghanistan or Kyrgyzstan. And if the epicenter was located in Uzbekistan, then at a great depth. Therefore, faint tremors recorded by seismographs reached the surface. Or, in rare cases, they were felt by people. But does this mean that the next earthquake in Uzbekistan will also pass unnoticed? Seismologists say that the earth’s bowels in the Hindu Kush mountains are now experiencing a period of special activity. And the deep valleys of the republic are an excellent springboard, where the element can show all its power.
