◀ again ▶
This time, we will connect to the Disaster Broadcasting Center to find out what is causing this earthquake and if there is a risk of a larger earthquake in the future.
Reporter Hyun In-ah, please come out!
◀ reporter ▶
This earthquake was the most powerful earthquake so far this year.
This is a map that shows how much the ground shook during the earthquake.
It rocked up to Seoul and the metropolitan area to the north and Gyeongnam to the south.
At the center of the earthquake, a maximum seismic intensity of 5 was observed.
It’s a vibration that can break a bowl or window, but luckily there doesn’t seem to be an earthquake or major damage in a sparsely populated place.
This earthquake was caused by a crack or fault in the moving earth.
This is a map that the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources analyzed for faults near the center of the earthquake, ie the “epidemic”.
Two faults have been identified north and south of the epicenter.
One is 7km long and the other is 15km long and stretches from northwest to southeast.
In addition to this, there are many other faults like this in the vicinity.
Earthquake experts believe one of these long dormant faults has awakened.
[김광희/부산대 지질환경과학과 교수]
“An earthquake occurs when the stored energy (along the fault) is released. An earthquake occurs when the existing fault is rehabilitated (reactivated).”
But why are there such flaws here?
Geologists claim that Korea was not originally a single land.
During the alleged Paleozoic era, the northern land of the Gyeonggi massif and the southern land of the Yeongnam massif collided to create the Korean peninsula.
It is the stress on the ground that awakens the guilt of sleep.
In the south of the Eurasian continent, India collides to form the Himalayas and, to the east, the Pacific plate collides.
Pressure from the east and west is coming to the Korean peninsula.
When the pressure builds, at some point the ground writhes and an earthquake occurs.
[김기범/부산대 지질환경과학과 교수]
“There may be weak spots where the crustal masses merge and the places where earthquakes occur now tend to be concentrated in those (weak) places.”
Aftershocks still continue due to this earthquake, but the possibility of a larger earthquake cannot be ruled out.
This is a map of all the hundreds of earthquakes that have occurred in Korea since observation.
Except for Gangwon-do and eastern Gyeonggi-do, there is no earthquake-free area, and red is where an earthquake of magnitude 5 or greater occurred.
The earthquake that shook on the weekend morning reminded me once again that there is no seismic zone on the Korean peninsula.
It was a disaster transmission center.
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