Earthquake in India’s Himalayas to be felt in Sri Lanka

Colombo: Sri Lanka's capital Colombo and the northern capital of Jaffna are likely to feel the effect of any powerful earthquake happening in the Himalayan range as predicted by Indian geologists, a geologist said here on Saturday.

If India experiences a quake of magnitude 8, it would be felt in Colombo and Jaffna, Athula Senaratne, a local university professor, told reporters.

Two years ago a quake that happened in the Himalayan range of magnitude 5 was severely felt in Colombo, people even came out of buildings, Senaratne said.

He said the area concerned was where the Eurasian and the Indo-Australian plates could come into conflict.

Senaratne was referring to a warning issued by the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Institute of the potential high-magnitude earthquake in India’s Uttarakhand region.