21 March 2011, 18:00
Seismologists predict powerful earthquake in Northern Caucasus
According to his story, Northern Caucasus now has 3 areas, where an earthquake has the highest probability: Dagestan, Krasnaya Polyana (Sochi area) and the area of the Caucasian Mineral Waters ("Kavminvody") (Central Caucasus).
"In the near future, an earthquake is most likely to occur in Dagestan, near the border with the Chechen Republic. Now, the seismic activity is on the rise there, minor and medium earthquakes happen there every week already. But, unfortunately, so far, scientists cannot accurately answer the following 3 question: where, when and what power of the shock will be. It means that there's no sense talking about a forecast in the full sense of the word," said the expert.
He noted that so far the earthquakes registered in Northern Caucasus did not exceed 7 points of Richter scale, such as the 1970 earthquake in Dagestan; in Mr Rogozhin's opinion, the upcoming one will surely not be stronger than that.
"As for the district of Sochi and Kavminvody, some probability of aftershocks also exists, but currently we don't register any rapid rise of seismic activity," the "Southern Region" quotes Mr Rogozhin as saying.
According to Guram Gabrichidze, a Corresponding Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Georgia, the Caucasus has 50,000 earthquake foci. He noted that over a century the region saw 10 earthquakes with power of 8 points; it indicates that earthquakes pose a serious threat for the Caucasus, the "Georgia-Online" writes.
