Religion and Ethics Forum

General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Hope on December 20, 2015, 04:44:10 PM

Title: This year's Nepalese earthquake
Post by: Hope on December 20, 2015, 04:44:10 PM

Apparently this packed the power of 'half an atom bomb'.  http://nyti.ms/1MppRFS

Now, I can't remember the official power of such a bomb, but I know its pretty big.

Quote

The impact was equivalent to the detonation of 7.6 kilotons of TNT, the study estimated; the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 was equivalent to about 16 kilotons.

Title: Re: This year's Nepalese earthquake
Post by: torridon on December 20, 2015, 05:13:18 PM

and as if that wasn't bad enough, now they have the Indian blockade to add to Nepali woes; there are daily load shedding power outages and huge queues forming for fuel as no fuel tankers are coming across the border

Title: Re: This year's Nepalese earthquake
Post by: jeremyp on December 20, 2015, 10:41:25 PM

The first question you should ask when you see comparisons like that is "is that a lot?"

This handy scale will tell you that the earthquake you are talking about was just under magnitude 6.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Energy_release_equivalents