On April 25, what has undoubtedly been the worst natural disaster in Nepal since 1934 , has had a direct effect on the shape of the Earth. According to the investigations of NASA's Earth Observatory , the earthquake measuring 7.9 degrees on the Richter scale, has caused a fault located at the edges of the tectonic plates of India and Eurasia and 90 by 30 kilometers long, to be has slid up to six meters from its starting position.
But this is not all: other landscapes in the area near the center of the earthquake have been lifted and others have fallen several meters, according to data collected by the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) instrument of the Agency's Sentinel-1A satellite. European Space Station , which made various observations of land displacement both in Nepal and in neighboring regions. This information was compared with measurements prior to the earthquake , confirming the palpable alteration in the shape of our planet.
According to the image provided by NASA, the areas colored in red show movements on the ground in the direction of the satellite of up to 1.4 meters ; the areas in blue show a distance from the satellite; the areas shaded in yellow are those in which there were no significant changes.
Thanks to measurements from the Global Positioning System (GPS) and other sensors, scientists have been able to confirm that these ground movements were made downward or upward, that is, decreasing or raising the surface of the Earth .
