South Asia Investor Review

Pakistan is known to have significant natural gas deposits trapped in the form of methane hydrates in sedimentary rocks off the coast of Baluchistan . Tragic as yesterday's earthquake is in terms of loss of human life, it may also have triggered the release of substantial amount of gas which pushed up a new island in the Arabian sea. A team of scientists from the National Institute of Oceanography in Karachi will visit the site this week to investigate it. In a study published online in the journal Nature Geoscience and reported recently by New York Times , European researchers said that an underwater quake off Pakistan nearly 70 years ago likely fractured seafloor sediments and created pathways for the release of methane gas which still continues to bubble up from below. The researchers say the phenomenon may be widespread enough that climate scientists should take it into account when estimating the amounts of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Dr. David Fischer, th...

The recent 7.0 earthquake that caused over 200,000 deaths in Haiti has revived discussion of potential loss of life from seismic activity in many cities in the developing world, including the South Asian capitals of Islamabad, Kathmandu and New Delhi, all located close to the South Asian fault lines . GeoHazards International , a Palo Alto, Calif. nonprofit research organization aiming to reduce suffering due to natural disasters, predicts that a 6.0 earthquake on the Richter scale would cause tens of thousands of deaths in major cities in the developing world. Here is GeoHazards' list of top 10 major cities and their expected minimum death tolls in the developing world which are most vulnerable to major earthquakes of 6.0 (or higher) intensity: 1. Kathmandu, Nepal 69,000 2. Istanbul, Turkey 55,000 3. Delhi, India 38,000 4. Quito, Ecuador 15,000 5. Manila, Philippines 13,000 6. Islamabad/Rawalpindi, Pakistan 12,500 7. San Salvador, El Salvador 11,500 7. Mexico City, Mexico...