Two doctors from India serving at the Lumbini Medical College are reported to have died after a landslide struck their car at Siddababa in Palpa District in southern Nepal on Wednesday 17 June 2015. The two have been named as Tarun Deep Singh Kochar an eye specialist and his wife Yasoda Kocher a gynecologist. Two other doctors from the college, Jamin Akhtar Mikrani and Prerit, are understood to have been injured in the event. The incident has been described as a dry landslide (most landslides are wet, caused by sediments becoming waterlogged after flooding or heavy rainfall), and linked to a small Earthquake, thought to have been an aftershock of the Magnitude 7.8 event which struck Nepal on 25 April 2015.
Rescue workers at the scene of the 17 June Palpa District landslide. Bhagwati Pandey/Setopati.
Nepal is located entirely within the Himalayas, a range of mountains formed by uplift associated with the collision between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The Indian Plate is moving northwards at a rate of 5 cm per year, causing it to impact into Eurasia, which is also moving northward, but only at a rate of 2 cm per year. When two tectonic plates collide in this way and one or both are oceanic then one will be subducted beneath the other (if one of the plates is continental then the other will be subducted), but if both plates are continental then subduction will not fully occur, but instead the plates will crumple, leading to folding and uplift (and quite a lot of Earthquakes). The collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has lead to the formation of the Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, and the mountains of southwest China, Central Asia and the Hindu Kush.
The approximate location of the 17 June Palpa District landslide. Google Maps.
See also...
Over 4500 people have been confirmed dead after an Earthquake measured as a Magnitude 7.8 event at a depth of 15 km by the United States Geological Survey struck the Lamjung District of Nepal...
Eight people are known to have died and at least three more are missing after two landslides in Nepal on Monday 25 August 2014. The first incident happened at Baramchi in Sindhupalchowk District, where...
Eight people are known to have died and many more are missing following a massive landslide near Jure in the Sindhupalchowk District of Nepal on Saturday 2 August 2014. At least forty people were also injured in the incident, one of whom has been identified...
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