India

The most recent earthquake along the Himalayan Arc, the magnitude (M) 7.6 Kashmir Earthquake that struck northern Pakistan on October 8, 2005, was felt as far away as Kabul, Afghanistan, and Delhi, India. The earthquake killed over 86,000 people, destroyed hundreds of villages in northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, and northern India, and collapsed over 32,300 buildings.

The most recent intra-plate event, the M7.6 Bhuj (Gujarat) earthquake in 2001, which was felt from Madras to Kathmandu, killed at least 19,200 people and injured 166,000 others. Economic losses added to US$ 4.5 billion and damage extended as far as the large industrial city of Ahmadabad, where a high-rise building collapsed.

Damaging earthquakes, coupled with the rapid growth and transformation of the insurance market, define the role of catastrophe models to help companies manage accumulations, set pricing, and report solvency margins. The 2007 RMS® India Earthquake Model offers the most complete solution for managing earthquake risk to insurance portfolios in India.

Model Highlights

	Model developed through collaborations with local experts at RMSI and with the National Geophysics Research Institute in Hyderabad, which provided knowledge of seismic hazard, soil data, inventory information, and expertise on local building standards
	Stochastic database of earthquake events including over 42,000 simulated earthquakes
	High-resolution hazard modeling using the RMS variable resolution grid (VRG); includes databases for soil type and liquefaction susceptibility
	Peak ground acceleration (PGA) approach to ground motion modeling
	Vulnerability functions based on loss data from recent events validated by simulating 14 historical events, including the 2001 Gujarat earthquake