Earthquake in Himalayas to be felt in Sri Lanka

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.

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

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.