An earthquake could one day strike the northern Bay of Bengal, triggering a tsunami and threatening at least a million people’s lives. This contradicts the prevailing idea that the region is relatively safe from such a threat.
Phil Cummins of Geoscience Australia in Canberra has reviewed GPS measurements and says the boundary between the Indian and south-east Asian tectonic plates does not cut through Burma, as previously thought, but probably lies up to 200 kilometres off the coast (Nature, ). This increases the quake risk because the plates are pushing harder against each other. Such a quake could cause a tsunami more forceful than the one that devastated Indonesia and Thailand in 2004.
