44 PAGES . BAISAS 200 VOLUME 42 NO. 47 FOUNDED 1975 A4 TOOISQC gets of to a perfect start REGION New amnesty as Syria conflict rages 2 President Bashar Al Assad declared a general amnesty yesterday as the conlict ravaging Syria showed no signs of abating. Under the latest decree, troops who deserted but did not ight against the regime may be pardoned if they surrender within a month, Sana reported. >A8 PAKISTAN Musharraf barred from election race 3 Pakistan’s election authorities barred former president Pervez Musharraf from competing in next month’s general elections yesterday, derailing his eforts to regain inluence by winning a seat in parliament. Musharraf has been barred because of court cases pending against him. >A10 OMAN Media award for Essa Al Zedjali 1 The late founder and editor- in-chief of Times of Oman, Essa bin Mohammed Al Zedjali was posthumously awarded the “Pen of Press Prize” by the Council of Gulf International Relations, at the two-day meeting of the fourth Gulf Press Association held in Doha. >A3 TOP THREE INSIDE STORIES !&$!"! "#!!"! % WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2013 6 JUMADA AL THANI 1434 AH timesofoman.com facebook.com/timesofoman twitter.com/timesofoman blog.timesofoman.com Sources: Earthquake hazard potential in Oman by Mohammed Qamaruddin & Ali Al Harthy, Oman seismological network by Zaid Al Habsi and Earthquakes - 7 days (USGS) Graphics Seismic activity in Middle East Earthquakes felt in Oman since 1934 The year with most seismic movements felt in Oman was 1965 Recent seismic events in the Middle East make us wonder about this natural phenomenon. Here are some explanations that will give us some answers. Earth’s crust consists of several plates divided by fault lines. Major earthquakes usually take place at these fault lines. Khasab and Musandam have more probabilities of seismic activity than any other Omani region because of their proximity to the fault lines. Most of the seismic movements happen in Iran’s Gulf coast Oman Saudi Arabia Yemen Somalia Indian Ocean 5-6 6-7 7 and greater Recent 4-5 Magnitude YESTERDAY’S EARTHQUAKE Bushehr Nuclear Plant The epicentre of yesterday's earthquake in Iran was around 600 kilometres northeast of Muscat, but was felt in most of the Middle East because of its high magnitude. 1 2 A f r i c a n E u rasia n Earth’s plates Indian 2 Arabian 1 1904-2013 earthquakes Iran Pakistan Iraq Kuwait Khash Muscat As per recorded history, there were earthquakes in Musandam (977, 1184 and 1483) and Qalhat (Late 15th century). 1934 2013 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Muscat Shinas Salalah Other locations TREMOR Reports >A5, A6, A10 & A16 Employees gather outside their oices, located in CBD area, in Muscat yesterday, following a powerful earthquake that hit southeastern Iran and was felt in the Gulf countries, including the Sultanate of Oman, and Pakistan and India. The US Geological Survey measured the earthquake at 7.8. Thirty-four people were reported killed in Pakistan. - Supplied picture
2President Bashar Al Assad declared a general amnesty yesterday as the
conlict ravaging Syria showed no signs of abating. Under the latest decree, troops who deserted but did not ight against the regime may be pardoned if they surrender within a month, Sana reported. >A8
PAKISTANMusharraf barred from election race
3Pakistan’s election authorities barred former president Pervez
Musharraf from competing in next month’s general elections yesterday, derailing his eforts to regain inluence by winning a seat in parliament. Musharraf has been barred because of court cases pending against him. >A10
OMANMedia award for Essa Al Zedjali
1The late founder and editor-in-chief of Times of Oman, Essa bin Mohammed Al
Zedjali was posthumously awarded the “Pen of Press Prize” by the Council of Gulf International Relations, at the two-day meeting of the fourth Gulf Press Association held in Doha. >A3
T O P T H R E E I N S I D E S T O R I E S
!&$!"! "#!!"!%WEDNESDAY, April 17, 2013 6 JUMADA AL THANI 1434 AH
Sources: Earthquake hazard potential in Oman by Mohammed Qamaruddin & Ali Al Harthy,
Oman seismological network by Zaid Al Habsi and Earthquakes - 7 days (USGS)
Graphics
Seismic activity in Middle East
Earthquakes feltin Oman since 1934The year with most seismicmovements felt in Oman was 1965
Recent seismic events in the Middle East make us wonder about this natural phenomenon. Here are some explanations that will give us some answers. Earth’s crust consists of several plates divided by fault lines. Major earthquakes usually take place at these fault lines.
Khasab and Musandam have more probabilities of seismic activity than any other Omani region because of their proximity to the fault lines.
Most of the seismic movements happen in Iran’s Gulf coast
Oman
Saudi Arabia
Yemen
Somalia
Indian
Ocean
5-6
6-7
7 and greater
Recent
4-5
Magnitude
YESTERDAY’SEARTHQUAKE
BushehrNuclearPlant
The epicentre of yesterday's earthquake in Iran was around 600 kilometres northeast of Muscat, but was felt in most of the Middle East because of its high magnitude.
12African
Eurasian
Earth’splates
Indian2
Arabian1
1904-2013 earthquakes
Iran
Pakistan
Iraq
Kuwait
Khash
Muscat
As per recorded history, there were earthquakes in Musandam (977, 1184 and 1483) andQalhat (Late 15th century).
1934 20131950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Muscat
Shinas
Salalah
Other locationsTREMOR Reports >A5, A6, A10 & A16
Employees gather outside their oices, located in CBD area, in Muscat yesterday, following a powerful earthquake that hit southeastern Iran and was felt in the Gulf countries, including the Sultanate of Oman, and Pakistan and India. The US Geological Survey measured
the earthquake at 7.8. Thirty-four people were reported killed in Pakistan. - Supplied picture
MUSCAT: Residents in the Sul-tanate of Oman were shaken up yesterday around 3pm when tremors from a 7.8-magnitude earthquake in southern Iran were felt here, but according to an ex-pert at GUtech, it could have been much worse.
Dr Goesta Hofmann, a geology professor who researches earth-quakes and tsunamis in Oman, said the Sultanate was lucky because the quake’s epicentre was inland, rather than in the Indian Ocean.
“If the epicentre is in the ocean, the sudden movement of the earth’s plate may set the water column into motion and if this happens, that will result in a tsu-nami,” Hofmann explained.
“Because the ocean facing Oman is very narrow, it would only take 15 to 30 minutes for a tsunami to reach the coast,” Hofman add-ed. He pointed out that a majority of Oman’s population lives along the coast, so the efects would be devastating if people didn’t move inland as soon as possible.
“The problem is we’d need 10 to 15 minutes to igure out where the epicentre is, and the wave only needs 15 to 30 minutes. It’s a diicult situation. If you feel the earthquake, you better move to higher ground. That’s the best advice,” Hofmann warned.
This earthquake follows one that hit Iran last week, measur-ing 6.1 on the Richter scale, which was felt in the United Arab Emir-ates, Qatar and Bahrain, but not Oman. The earthquake was a re-sult of the same tectonic plates — the Asian and the Eurasian
— colliding. However, the two earthquakes are not connected, Hofmann said.
“An important message is there is nothing related to the earth-quake of last week. There is no scientiic proof that this is con-tinuation from last week,” he said.
But given the stronger mag-nitude of this earthquake, its tremors were felt as far away as in New Delhi and here in Muscat. While at least 45 casualties were reported in Khash, Iran, which is approximately 600km away from Muscat, no injuries or deaths were reported here.
But people who felt the quake were certainly shocked.
Evacuation “At irst I thought it was the wash-ing machine. Then I thought it was a truck driving by. Then the windows really started rattling, and I realised it was an earth-quake. I was about to wake my daughter from her nap and go outside when it stopped,” said Heather Burt, an American resi-dent of Al Khuwair, who grew up in California, where earthquakes are common.
Oice buildings and colleges throughout the city were evacu-ated after the tremors, and peo-
ple spilled onto sidewalks and into parking lots, despite the hot afternoon sun. Hofmann said GUtech was completely evacu-ated within minutes, and luckily, it went smoothly. He was on the fourth loor of the university and felt the building shake strongly as three tremors hit over a 45-sec-ond period.
“The intensity you felt here de-pends on where you were at the time of the earthquake. People on higher loors of buildings would have felt more intense shaking than people on the ground. I was on the fourth loor and it was re-ally rocky,” he said. “It certainly felt like something is going on which is deinitely not okay. Im-mediately you have an idea that something is completely wrong.”
Hofmann said he and other ge-ologists in Oman will continue to study the earthquakes in hopes of determining how often they will happen, and how strong they are. “We need that knowledge in order to mitigate damages,” he said.
MUSCAT: The 13th edition of the Oman International ELT Conference, organised annu-ally by the Language Centre at the Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), will begin today.
For the last 13 years of the Language Centre, an annual national ELT conference is be-ing organised to cater to the professional needs of English language teachers, practitioners and researchers working with diferent levels of learners com-ing from diferent academic and sociocultural contexts, both lo-cally and internationally.
Since its inception in 2001, the ELT conference has cov-ered a wide range of themes and topics, beginning from ‘Achiev-ing excellence in English for academic and professional pur-poses’, the theme of the 2001 conference, to ‘Changing times, emerging opportunities in ELT’, which is the theme of this year’s conference.
Dr Fawzia Aziz Al Seyabi, deputy director of Professional Development and Community Service at the Language Centre, SQU, said that the annual ELT conference of the Language Centre at SQU is one of the larg-est professional development events in the area and attracts a large number of people.
MUSCAT: The aftershocks of a 7.8-magnitude earthquake, which struck Iran near its border with Pakistan yesterday, were felt in the northern parts of the Sultanate.
According to a top oicial at the Sultanate’s Earthquake Monitor-ing Centre, the aftershocks of the earthquake were felt in the north-ern parts of Oman.
“The epicentre of the earth-quake was nearly 600km north-east of Muscat. It is one of the largest earthquakes recorded in the last 40 years in Iran. Since it was a major one, with a depth of some 75km, there will be more aftershocks over the next few days. The aftershocks may cause damage in Iran and may be felt in the Sultanate, but they will not cause any damage in Oman,” Issa Al Hussein, director of the Earth-quake Monitoring Centre, told Times of Oman.
According to the US Geologi-cal Survey data, the quake hit at 2.44pm (Oman time). A German scientist studying the coastal evo-lution of the Sultanate at GUtech held a similar view to the one ex-pressed by the Earthquake Moni-toring Centre director.
Musandam“In the coming few days, after-shocks will be felt in the northern parts of Oman. This time, Musan-dam was not severely hit because the epicentre was quite far of. But the likelihood of an earthquake severely jolting Musandam can-not be ruled out,” stated Goesta Hofman, the German scientist, who has published a study based on the observation that the coast-line in the Musandam governo-
rate is sinking by 8mm per year.A senior naval oicial at the
Sultanate’s naval base in Musan-dam, which is close to Iran, noted that the base had felt the tremors but no damage had been reported. “It was a mild tremor. By the grace of the Almighty, there was no damage,” the oicial conirmed.
Panic grips residentsHowever, people had rushed out onto the streets from their resi-dences and oices in the northern cities of the Sultanate when they felt the tremors.
“At irst, we didn’t realise it was an earthquake. Later, we ran out of the building, leaving our belongings behind. I even forgot to grab my cellphone,” remarked Mohammed Anwar, a bank oi-cial in Ruwi, adding that this was the irst time in his life that he had experienced a tremor.
Everywhere, people were seen standing on the road outside their oices and apartments for hours after the tremors hit.
“I was sleeping in the afternoon after coming home from work. I suddenly had the impression that somebody was shaking my bed. I woke up and saw my table shak-ing. I stepped out of my house, which is on the third loor. There, I saw everybody waiting outside their apartments in panic. I have been here for the last 29 years, but this is the irst time that I’ve expe-rienced a tremor,” asserted Hus-sain, an Indian expatriate living in Hamriyah.
Power supply unafectedMeanwhile, an oicial from Mus-cat Electricity Distribution Com-pany (MEDC) said that power distribution networks are ei-ciently working and no other as-
sets were afected. “There were some outages but they are not due to tremor,” Zehran Al Ruqeshi, corporate communication spe-cialist at MEDC, said. People in Sohar also felt the tremors.
“I was at my head oice. I felt the tremors. My sales people in our branch oices called me and said they had also felt the mild tremors and that some of the packets they had been preparing for distribution had fallen down,” explained Pradeep Menon, who runs a packed-food distribution company in Sohar.
No damageMeanwhile, oicials at airports in Muscat and Salalah said the tremors had not caused any dam-age. “Everything is calm here,” the airport oicials said.
The last earthquake felt in Muscat occurred in 1945. It was a large event (>M8.0) that occurred ofshore at the Makran Subduc-tion Zone and caused a tsunami that reached the Omani coast.
In the region, yesterday’s earth-quake also shook buildings in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, across the wa-ters of the Gulf in the United Arab Emirates. It was also felt in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
“A light that was supposed to land in Dubai at around 3pm (Dubai time) landed slightly late. It had been circling around Dubai airport for a while. We suspect that the delay occurred as a result of the earthquake,” Tonny George Alexander, country manager of UAE Exchange, told Times of Oman from Dubai.
In the tourist hub of Dubai, residential and oice buildings were evacuated, and thousands of people gathered outside the sky-scrapers.
The epicentre of
the earthquake was
nearly 600km
northeast of Muscat,
and the aftershocks
were felt in the
northern parts of
Oman yesterdayANXIOUS MOMENTS: People are seen standing in CBD area in
Ruwi, after the tremor was felt at 2.44pm, yesterday. — Sunil Sudevan/
