Saravan Earthquake of 16 April 2013, Mw=7.8
At 10:44 UTC (15:14 local time), April 16, 2013, an earthquake struck the Saravan region in South eastern Iran. The earthquake had reportedly 41 victims and more than 180 injured people. One of the victims was reported from Iran (in the village of Ghaderabad of the city of Khash) and the 40 others were reported from Pakistan. The early financial assessment of the earthquake losses by the governary general of Sistan and Baluchestan province of Iran showed a loss of about 50 million USD. The Mw was assessed to be 7.8 and a depth of 63km was assigned by IIEES. The focal mechanism was found to be mostly extension faulting and the fault trend is evidently ENE-WSW. According to the EMSC reports, an almost pure normal faulting with a focal depth of 84 km. Other reports on Focal mechanisms (i.e. by USGS) show mostly normal having a little strike-slip component. According to the deep depth of this event, this event can be associated with subduction of oceanic lithosphere of Arabian plate beneath the Makran ranges. The tectonic setting in this area was studied by several geologists and seismologists such as Byrne et, al (1992) and Musson (2009) that explained a subduction zone for this area. The epicenter of the earthquake lied in the mountainous topography region; however, the surrounded areas of the epicenter were moderately populated (about 98000 people live in the distance of about 100km from the epicenter). The shock was felt strongly in Gosht (assessed VI+, 35 km southwest of epicenter), Saravan (VI, 60 km S) and Zahedan (VI, 190 km NW) and less strongly in Masqat (IV, 650 km S) and Persian gulf Islands (IV, >700 km W) as well as the strong shaking felt in the high rise buildings of Dubai, Doha, Manama and even in Kuwait. According to BHRC (Iranian Building and Housing Research Center), this event was recorded by 33 sets of digital 3 component accelerographs in Iran Strong Ground Motion Network, from which 6 accelerograms had recorded a PGA greater than 100 cm/sec.sec. peak acceleration was recorded in Sabz-Gaz station (198 cm/s2) in a 91km hypocentral distance.
- Reference: Mehdi ZARE, Anooshiravan Ansari, Heydar Heydari, Mohammad, P.M. Shahvar, Mehdi Daneshdust, Majid Mahdian,Fereidoun Sinaiean, Esmail Farzanegan and Hossein Mirzaei Alavijeh, (2013), A Reconnaissance Report on two. Iran, Makran Earthquakes. ; 16 April 2013, Mw7.8, Gosht (Saravan) and 11 May 2013 Irar(Goharan), Bashagard, SE of Iran. Earthquake engineering research institute.
