Quaking in their sandals

Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2005 3:05 AM
To: The Spectator
Subject: "what was the point of the Pakistan earthquake?"
Status: Boris Johnston politely advised he had 'no space' for it...

"What was the point of the Pakistan earthquake?"

To answer Rod Liddle's question: it proved a point made by scientists
for some time that modern bombing can and will create earthquakes,
sometimes distant in time or area. I didn't know of such links when the
idea popped into my mind as I read about an article in Nature magazine,
where a French and an American scientist showed how seismic waves could
'soften up' rock.

A few days ago I googled for 'seismic effects of bombing'. Among the
results was an article in Johnson's Russia List of Jan. 25, 2003 from
Rossiiskaya Gazeta (#18 - JRL 7033) that quoted Aleksei Nikolayev, a
leading Russian expert on geophysics as saying that: "Today the effect
of conventional super-powerful munitions is as destructive as that of
nuclear bombs. Intensive bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 resulted in a
series of earthquakes; the largest of them took
place in Afghanistan and Pakistan on March 3, roughly nine hours after
the Americans dropped some 100 tons of ground bombs and several tons of
powerful new vacuum bombs."

Given the concentrated and powerful U.S. bombing raids along the border
mountains in the hunt for Osama and his gang, I agree with Mr Little
that "the mullahs have been remarkably silent". Let's hope it stays that
way, for in the present situation in Pakistan, any of them 'putting two
and two together' could cause far-reaching "aftershocks"...

Cheers!