Deterioration of Śarda Temple, Neelum Valley, Pakistan: General Perceptions vs New Findings (original) (raw)
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Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 2014
An entry in the Tarikh-i-Hassan records that in 883 AD during the reign of King Avantivarman (855-883) an earthquake in Kashmir triggered a landslide that impounded the River Jhelum and flooded the Kashmir Valley. Kalhana's Rajatarangini provides abundant details about how the ninth century engineer Suyya both cleared the natural dam, drained the valley and instituted numerous irrigation works. We identify the landslide(s) responsible for this Medieval flood and from twentieth century discharge statistics of the Jhelum calculate that it would have taken at least 2 years to flood the Kashmir Valley to near Anantnag. This presents a chronological difficulty, for the causal earthquake could not have occurred in the last 4 months of Avantivarman's rule, and we conclude that it must have occurred much earlier, perhaps before the start of his reign. The flood occurred during a period of widespread temple building using massive uncemented limestone megablocks, capped by monolithic multi-ton roofs. Many of these magnificent temples, now in ruinous condition, are located close to the shores of the inferred Medieval flood level, suggesting that the transport of construction materials for these temples may have been ferried by barge from distant quarries. Historians and archaeologists have attributed the partial collapse of these temples to malicious damage by subsequent occupants of the valley, but the misalignment of blocks at lower levels within each edifice in recent earthquakes suggests that their lateral offsets are the result of jostling during prolonged shaking in historical earthquakes. From the serendipitous entrapment of datable materials beneath fallen blocks from Kashmir's ninth century temples we can, in principle, identify the times of historical earthquakes. We chose the ruined Sugandhesa temple near Patan to test this hypothesis. Preliminary results indicate collapse in the tenth or eleventh century, and significant damage in 1885, with at least one intervening earthquake possibly in the seventieth century.
Deformed monuments can be used to help constrain the timing of an earthquake, its epicenter, and the extent of its damage. In the present work, we studied the ancient temples in the Chamba and Bharmour area from the seventh century onward in the Ravi River catchment of the Chamba district of western Himachal Pradesh, India, which lies in the Kashmir seismic gap of the northwest Himalaya. Many architectural features of the temples show earthquake-induced deformation signatures that include tilting of the pillars and temple structures, fractures, and opening in the brick masonry. The Bharmour temples located 45 km north of Kangra show shear-type deformation in the eastwest direction. The Chamba temples, which lie 52 km northwest of Kangra and outside the rupture zone of 1905 Kangra earthquake, display shear or rigid body rotation in the north-south direction. The deformation features observed in the temples suggest that the Bharmour area lies within the 1905 Kangra earthquake meizoseismal zone, and that the 1555 Kashmir earthquake rupture zone extended southeast toward Chamba.
Earthquake in Nepal and the Destruction of Monuments: A Case Study of Bhaktapur Durbar Square, Nepal
Journal of environment and earth science, 2016
This manuscript deals with architectural features which focus on construction technology and materials and the destruction of monuments by earthquake and anti-seismic technology. The techniques are concentrated on the historical and architectural value of Nepali architecture. The write-up will focus on the traditional techniques in modern way but using the same technology to save the other monuments from the natural disasters in Nepal. In some cases some monuments are heavily damaged by the structural strength or due to the age of the building. In both cases modern technology and material are used and some structural system has been completely changed but in Nepal, because of architectural value and Newar technology the architects, engineers, municipality and other authority who are directly involved to the restoration work, want to keep the traditional technology for next future generation. The purpose of this study is to introduce the strategies, construction detail and ensure the guard of the prevailing monuments as well.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2023
Kachchh of western India, considered to be a Stable Continental Region (SCR), has experienced several large magnitude earthquakes in recent past, viz. 1668 CE (M w 7.0), 1819 CE (M w 7.8), 1845 CE (M w 6.3), 1956 CE (M w 6.0), and 2001 CE (M w 7.7). Our present study emphasizes on identifying archaeoseismic signatures from the ruins of an ancient city built by Lakho Punarvo of Samma Dynasty around 1000 CE found near the Manjal Town of Kachchh. Among the ruins, Punvareshwar Temple exhibits penetrative fractures within masonry blocks, recycled anomalous elements, displaced blocks and lateral shift of superstructure. Vadi Medi, a pillared structure, shown varied orientation of intact columns, displaced blocks, fallen and oriented columns. The nature of these signatures exhibits the influence of seismic phenomena which can be categorized as off-fault damage caused by strong seismic shaking. In order to quantify the ground shaking experienced by the structures, seismic hazard analysis which considers all the possible potential seismic sources within a radius of 100 km has been employed. It is identified from the analysis that the damage incurred to the structures is due to the strong ground acceleration experienced during the 1819 and 2001 earthquakes and the recurrence of similar peak ground acceleration is estimated as 700-750 and 500-600 years respectively.
Structural Vulnerability of Nepalese Pagoda Temples
Nepal is located in one of the most severe earthquake prone areas of the world, lying between collisions of Indian to the Eurasian plate, moving continuously, resulting in frequent devastating earthquakes within this region. Moreover, different authors refer mention that the accumulated slip deficit (central seismic gap) is likely to produce large earthquakes in the future. Also, the analysis of the available information of previous earthquakes indicates the potential damage that can occurs in unreinforced traditional masonry structures in future earthquakes.