WATER has suddenly appeared in the middle of an arid part of north-west
India, as a result of last month鈥檚 devastating earthquake in Gujarat. As many as
20,000 people may have died in the earthquake, which registered 6.9 on the
Richter scale.
The water is the one small ray of hope to have come out of the devastation.
The new watercourses appeared after the earthquake liquefied the clay and sand
in ancient river beds. Underground water quickly rose to the surface to flood
the channels.
The region is regularly convulsed by earthquakes. 鈥淭he Indian plate is
colliding with the Asian plate, so the land is crumpling up, says Roger Musson
of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh.
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Over the years these earthquakes have diverted watercourses and dried up
rivers, turning the lush grassland of thousands of years ago into a barren
wasteland. Local geologists hope the latest earthquake may help to reverse the
process.
Images taken by two Indian remote sensing satellites before and after the
earthquake confirm the sudden appearance of water in the vast salt plain along
India鈥檚 west coast. The latest pictures show dozens of rivulets and pits
extending from Pakistan to northwest India. The images also show three major
channels, including a 100-kilometre-long channel in the Rann of Kutch.
None of these channels was visible on images taken immediately before the
earthquake. Eyewitness reports say 2-metre-high fountains of water appeared near
Bhachau, a town that was totally destroyed by the earthquake.
Describing the appearance of the river channels as 鈥渢he only silver lining鈥�
in the devastation, Janardhan Negi of the Geophysical Research Institute in
Hyderabad, said the channels could belong to either or both of two ancient
rivers in north India.
One is the semi-mythical Saraswati, which legend says dried up 4000 years
ago. Satellite images have found underground channels in areas where the
Saraswati is supposed to have flowed. The second is part of the river Indus,
which was diverted after a violent earthquake in 1819.
Negi says the 1819 earthquake created a 100-kilometre-long fissure that
diverted the river. As the Indus delta dried out and sank, the sea flooded 4500
square kilometres of the delta, before drying out to leave behind vast salty
stretches.
However, the new channels will not make the old lost rivers flow again. Tests
have shown that the water is saline. 鈥淭he feeder for the rivers cannot be
located,鈥� says Negi. But the channels may alter the water drainage pattern in
the dry area and help to rejuvenate it, he said.
Roger Bilham, a geologist from the University of Colorado, whose colleagues
have just returned from the earthquake zone, is also sceptical. 鈥淭he rivers are
draining a river catchment,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 only a certain amount of water
underground and it鈥檚 headed for salt waste. It鈥檚 probably already stopped.鈥�
