An unusually high number of major tremors are being recorded around the north of Lake Baikal in Siberia, raising concern among scientists that these may indicate a powerful quake that could split the continents of Europe and Asia into half.
Seismologists have so far registered more than 50 major tremors in the area, which measured from magnitude 3.0 to 5.0 on the Richter scale, the Daily Express reported.
Experts from around the world monitoring the situation at the Siberian Lake are concerned that these tremors could mean a phase of rising tectonic activity at the Baikal rift zone, which runs through a massive territory including the Republic of Buryatia and the Irkutsk region.
This increased tectonic activity may trigger a catastrophic earthquake in Siberia, which can only happen every 50 to 60 years.
This quake will be so powerful that it can topple large-scale infrastructure projects in Siberia, such as the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Far East pipeline.
Worse, this constant seismic activity may even lead to an earthquake that can separate the Eurasian land mass into two.
Such a horrifying event can happen in some 650 million years, scientists said.
Gennady Tatkov, the director of the Geological Institute, of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said the last time such increased activity happened in the Baikal rift was in the middle of the 20th century.
"There was a long pause, and then an earthquake measuring a grade of nine on the European Macroseismic Scale was registered on April 5, 1950, with the epicentre near the village of Mondy in the Eastern Sayan mountains," Tatkov said.
"The next earthquake shook an area in north Buryatia close to the villages of Muya and Ust-Muyawhich that were earlier considered to be near aseismic [meaning, no previous sign of earthquake activity]. That was a level 11 quake, and the Severomuiskoe earthquake resulted in the Udokan mountain ridge growing by 1.5 metres and shifting northeast by 1.2 metres," he added.
