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Vol 449 | 6 September 2007 | doi:10.1038/nature06088
The potential for giant tsunamigenic earthquakes in
the northern Bay of Bengal
Phil R. Cummins1
The great Sumatra–Andaman earthquake and Indian Ocean tsu-
nami of 2004 came as a surprise to most of the earth science
community. Although it is now widely recognized that the risk
of another giant earthquake is high off central Sumatra1, just east
of the 2004 earthquake, there seems to be relatively little concern
about the subduction zone to the north, in the northern Bay of
Bengal along the coast of Myanmar. Here I show that similar
indicators suggest a high potential for giant earthquakes along
the coast of Myanmar. These indicators include the tectonic envir-
onment, which is similar to other subduction zones that experi-
ence giant megathrust earthquakes, stress and crustal strain
observations, which indicate that the seismogenic zone is locked,
and historical earthquake activity, which indicates that giant tsu-
namigenic earthquakes have occurred there in the past. These are
all consistent with active subduction in the Myanmar subduction
zone and I suggest that the seismogenic zone extends beneath the
Bengal Fan. I conclude therefore that giant earthquakes probably
occur off the coast of Myanmar, and that a large and vulnerable
population is thereby exposed to a significant earthquake and
tsunami hazard.
The tectonic setting of west Myanmar has been marked by
considerable uncertainty and some controversy2,3. Research in the
1980s4,5 inferred that the surface expression of the boundary between
the Indian plate and southeast Asia follows the northward extension
of the Andaman trough, coming ashore on the coast of Myanmar just
south of Ramree island at roughly 20u N latitude (Fig. 1a). This
coincides with the extrapolation of the Wadati Benioff zone beneath
western Myanmar to the western flank of the Indo-Burma ranges,
and is the plate boundary indicated in most widely used plate models
(Fig. 1b). Most authors3–5 favoured the interpretation that eastward
subduction of the Indian plate has ceased and the slab beneath Burma
is being dragged northward along with the Indian plate. This con-
clusion seems to be supported by the fact that the focal mechanisms
of shallow earthquakes near the presumed plate boundary have pres-
sure axes oriented north–south, implying no east–west compression
and hence no active subduction. Even if subduction were active, this
position of the plate boundary suggests that convergence is highly
oblique (,5u), implying a very long recurrence interval for thrust
earthquakes, and that the offshore segment of the plate boundary
north of the 2004 Sumatra–Andaman earthquake’s rupture area
would be only 300 km in length; hence, the likelihood of a giant
tsunamigenic earthquake in the northern Bay of Bengal would be
low6.
The up-dip limit of the seismogenic zone should not, however, be
presumed to lie where the slab begins to descend beneath the upper
plate. Rather, the seismogenic zone extends as far out along the
decollement as necessary to encompass all of the significant strain
accumulation that might be released in a megathrust earthquake.
Although this distinction may not be important for most other
1
Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia.
©2007 Nature Publishing Group
LETTERS
subduction zones, which have at most a 2-km-thick sediment layer
on the upper surface of the subducting plate7, the northern Bay of
Bengal is unique because it hosts the world’s largest submarine fan
system, the Bengal Fan, consisting of sediments that have been shed
off Tibet and the Himalayas since the Early Miocene. The thickness of
the Bengal Fan sediments reaches up to 20 km (ref. 8). Because even a
1-km-thick sediment cover can insulate the underlying plate enough
to cause significant up-dip extension of the thermal regime required
for seismogenesis9, it seems reasonable to expect this effect to be
particularly pronounced for the extreme thickness of the Bengal
Fan sediments. Such considerations support an alternative hypo-
thesis for subduction along the coast of Myanmar: that subduction
is active and ‘‘rare great earthquakes may occur along a basal decolle-
ment’’4. This hypothesis is supported by studies in the 1990s that
place the deformation front well offshore of the Myanmar coast,
not coming ashore until the Mehgna estuary at 23u N (refs 8, 10–
12). Marine seismic surveys12 demonstrate unequivocally that the
deformation front is offshore of Ramree island, and borehole
breakout data show that the stress field in the sedimentary pile of
the Bengal basin is oriented east–west13, suggesting that the
Chittagong–Tripura fold belt is an active feature forming in response
to ongoing subduction of the Indian plate beneath southeast Asia12.
This extension of the seismogenic zone beneath the Bengal Fan,
100–200 km westward of the previously inferred plate boundary, has
important implications for seismic and tsunami hazard. First, the
convergence is much less oblique than it would be along the north-
ward extension of the Andaman trench (Fig. 1b), suggesting that
recurrence times of large thrust earthquakes might be only a few
hundred years14. Second, it means that the shallow earthquakes in
the Indo-Burma ranges with focal mechanisms exhibiting north–
south pressure axes are actually occurring in the forearc, 100 km
landward from the deformation front. Both of these factors would
make the Arakan subduction zone similar to the Cascadia and
Nankai subduction zones, which have oblique, partitioned subduc-
tion, arc-parallel orientation of the maximum horizontal stress in the
forearc15, and exhibit very little megathrust earthquake activity (apart
from the relatively infrequent occurrence of giant megathrust earth-
quakes). Thick trench sediments, which in the Bay of Bengal far
exceed those of any other trench, have been shown to have a positive
correlation with subduction zone earthquake occurrence16. Finally,
extension of the seismogenic zone to offshore Myanmar means that
the entire 900-km-long seismogenic zone, from the northern tip of
the Andaman Trench to the northern tip of the Bay of Bengal, is
submarine, and therefore capable of hosting a giant tsunamigenic
earthquake.
Along with the interpretation that there is no active subduction
between the Indian plate and southeast Asia, it has been suggested3
that all of the relative motion between the Indian and Eurasian plates
is accommodated along the Sagaing fault in central Myanmar.
75
LETTERS
Global positioning system (GPS) surveys14,17, however, have shown
that only 60% of the oblique component of relative plate motion is
accommodated on the Sagaing fault. The remaining deformation
could be explained either by distributed deformation west of the
Sagaing fault, or by locking of the Arakan subduction zone. In the
latter case, the Arakan subduction zone ‘‘would be expected to pro-
duce a magnitude 8.5 earthquake every century or a magnitude 9
every 500 years’’14.
Many of the above studies have referred to historical earth-
quakes near the Myanmar coast, but none has considered in detail
the historical reports of the 2 April 1762, Arakan earthquake.
Descriptions of the effects of this earthquake and associated ground
movements along the Arakan coast were recorded during a survey in
1841 by the British ship Childers18, commanded by Captain E.
Halsted. Halsted recorded evidence of 3–7 m of uplift along the
coasts of Ramree, Cheduba and Foul islands, which lie offshore of
and parallel to the Arakan coast of Myanmar. Halsted remarked
that the traces of this sudden change in land elevation were ‘‘as clear
as could be wished’’, and that on Cheduba ‘‘the natives are all per-
fectly aware of the bank having formerly been the limit of their
island’’. An interview with a local who experienced the 1762 earth-
quake, who ‘‘had been accustomed to fish over the now-upraised
land’’, confirmed that the uplift occurred during the earthquake.
Halsted also noted the existence of at least one additional upraised
terrace. Of particular concern for hazard assessment is Halsted’s
statement that ‘‘these elevations are considered periodical by the
inhabitants, occurring every hundred years, and the next event is
expected within the course of the next few years, and would excite
but little surprise’’.
Did the 1762 earthquake cause a tsunami? Halsted’s interviews
with the inhabitants of Cheduba confirm that there was a local tsu-
nami: ‘‘the sea washed to and fro several times with great fury, and
then retired from the ground’’. Remarkably, no lives were reported
a b
80º 90º
Sagaing fault
Area of b
Su
m
at
0 500 km
Earthquake rupture areas
2004 (Mw = 9.15)
1861 and 2005 (Mw = 8.6)
1797 and 1833 (Mw = 8.5–8.7)
Figure 1 | Tectonic setting of the Bay of Bengal. a, Tectonic setting of the
eastern Indian Ocean, showing Sumatra earthquake rupture areas, the
subduction zone plate boundary (line with black triangles) from the
University of Texas Institute of Geophysics plates model, and the
deformation front11 (line with red triangles). b, A more detailed view of the
76
NATURE | Vol 449 | 6 September 2007
lost, and it is interesting to speculate that local knowledge of the
tsunami threat caused inhabitants of Cheduba to flee to high ground
when the earthquake occurred. Whether a tsunami affected other
parts of the Bay of Bengal is less clear. There are no known reports
from the coast of Bengal (now Bangladesh and the Indian province of
West Bengal). At Dhaka, however, the river rose suddenly and ‘‘hun-
dreds of large country boats were driven ashore or lost, and great
numbers of lives lost with them’’19. It is not clear, however, if this was
due to a wave from the sea or a change in land level that may have
caused the river to back up.
The geological evidence of uplift along the Arakan coast provides
clear evidence of the occurrence of large thrust earthquakes there,
and Halsted’s account indicates that rupture from the 1762 earth-
quake extended as far south as Foul island. It is less clear how far
north rupture from this earthquake extended. On the one hand, there
are no reports of geologic evidence for uplift north of Ramree island.
On the other hand, contemporary accounts19 from Chittagong
describe widespread liquefaction and subsidence. Although in many
cases submergence due to the expulsion of groundwater is difficult to
distinguish from inundation by the sea, there are also accounts of
islands sinking to or below sea level, and a report that 60 square miles
of land were ‘‘permanently submerged’’20, so it seems clear that at
least some parts of the coast near Chittagong subsided.
This subsidence is a crucial observation, because it implies that
fault rupture extended as far north as Chittagong, and that the up-dip
limit of rupture was well offshore, because subsidence would occur
only above the down-dip limit of fault rupture. The extension of
the rupture at least as far north as Chittagong is supported by con-
temporary accounts describing intense ground shaking, extensive
damage to buildings, and formation of large fissures and landslides19,
which are all observations consistent with a Modified Mercalli
Intensity (MMI) of 9 or greater. Studies of fault rupture associated
with historical subduction zone earthquakes in Japan21, as well as
100º 85º 90º 95º
Indo–Bu
Chittagong–Tripura
20º fold System
rma ran
ges
10º
20º
ra
fa
u
0º
lt
36 mm yr–1 relative plate motion
(India versus Sunda plate)
10º
0 250 km
15º
0 5 10 15 20
Sediment thickness (km)
northern Bay of Bengal, showing the rough positions of the
Chittagong–Tripura fold belt and Indo-Burma ranges with respect to the
plate boundary (line with black triangles) and deformation front (line with
red triangles). Sediment thickness is also indicated, along with the relative
motion of the Indian plate versus the Sunda plate14.
©2007 Nature Publishing Group
NATURE | Vol 449 | 6 September 2007 LETTERS

a b
85º 90º 95º 80º 85º 90º 95º
Dhaka
Dhaka
Kolkata
Chittagong
Kolkata
Chittagong
20º

NE

SW

20º
15º
Ramree

0 200 km Chennai
Cheduba

SW NE
10 Foul
Vertical displacement (m)

Cheduba
Foul 10º
5 Ramree
Chittagong

0 0 200 km

–5 15º 5º
0 50 100 150 200
Distance from deformation front (km)
0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Maximum offshore tsunami height (m)
0 500 1,000 1,500 2,000 2,500 3,000
Bathymetry depth (m)

Figure 2 | Models for the 1762 Arakan earthquake and tsunami. a, A fault
model for the 1762 Arakan earthquake, with length 700 km, width 125 km
(indicated by the rectangle along the eastern coast of the northern Bay of
Bengal) and slip 10 m. Parameters were chosen to reproduce roughly the
observed subsidence and uplift associated with the 1762 Arakan earthquake,
with the fault’s upper edge coincident with the deformation front. The inset
is a southwest–northeast (SW–NE) profile of the vertical displacement
across the fault, with arrows indicating the down-dip positions of the
observed uplift and subsidence. b, Maximum offshore heights of a tsunami,
calculated using the source in a. This calculation does not take into account
run-up, which can be many times greater than the offshore heights.

studies of macroseismic data in Mexico22, suggest that such high
MMIs are only observed within 50 km of fault rupture. Finally, if
rupture had extended only as far north as Ramree island, the rise
of the river at Dhaka could be attributable only to a tsunami that had
propagated along the strike of the subduction zone. Little tsunami
energy would be propagated in this direction, so it seems unlikely that
a tsunami large enough to travel 100 km upriver to Dhaka would have
been generated by an earthquake whose rupture stopped at Ramree
island.
A tsunami was simulated for a moment magnitude Mw 5 8.8
thrust earthquake along the Arakan coast, positioned so that its
upper edge lies along the deformation front11 and 10 m reverse slip
results in the observed pattern of uplift and subsidence (Fig. 2a). As
discussed above, this pattern requires the seismogenic zone to extend
offshore, beneath the Bengal Fan, consistent with geologic inter-
pretations and stress observations. Such an earthquake would gen-
erate a large tsunami that could have a pronounced impact on the
Chittagong coast and the Ganges–Bhramaputra delta at the northern
tip of the Bay of Bengal (Fig. 2b). The latter region is home to over
60 million people living within 10 m of sea level. Chittagong, with a
population of over 6 million, lies just above the presumed fault, and is
the source of some of the most dramatic accounts of ground
deformation and damage from the 1762 earthquake. Dhaka and
Kolkata, although they are some distance from the presumed rupture
area, are urban agglomerations of over 10 million each, with a large
proportion of their populations living in structures that are unlikely
to be seismically resilient. Even if only a small fraction of this popu-
lation is vulnerable to a giant tsunamigenic earthquake along the
©2007 Nature Publishing Group
Arakan subduction zone, it seems likely that the number of lives at
risk may be over a million.
The Mw 5 8.8 earthquake proposed here as representative of the
1762 event is a worst-case scenario, and the details of the rupture
model may be open to question. Also, it may be over 200 years before
a similar event occurs, according to GPS observations of 23 mm yr21
accumulation of backslip along the Arakan trench14. The next tsuna-
migenic earthquake in the Arakan subduction zone may not be this
large, but it may also occur much sooner. It is also not certain that the
1762 earthquake produced more than a local tsunami, although it
should be borne in mind that the rapid rate of sedimentation in the
Bay of Bengal could also lead to tsunamis caused by submarine land-
slides. In any case, the evidence of active convergence accompanied
by thrust earthquake activity along a coastal region with an extremely
high population density suggests that the risk of a major tsunami in
the northern Bay of Bengal should be taken seriously.
Received 27 February; accepted 10 July 2007.
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Acknowledgements Among the many colleagues at Geoscience Australia who
offered support and advice, I especially thank C. Collins for discussions about the
1762 Arakan earthquake and Bengal during the colonial era, and M. Hollow for help
locating many of the historical references. I am also grateful to K. Sieh and C. Vigny
for their thorough and constructive reviews.
Author Information Reprints and permissions information is available at
www.nature.com/reprints. The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to P.R.C.
(phil.cummins@ga.gov.au).