A New Island appears off the coast of Balochistan after the Quake

A New Island appears off the coast of Balochistan after the Quake

This Tuesday, a rather interesting thing happened after a very sad event.

Pakistan’s Balochistan area was hit by a 7.7 magnitude Earthquake.  As people in the coastal town of Gwadar came out, they saw a rather incredible sight of an island suddenly having appeared just away from the coast right where there was nothing.

Barely half an hour after they were jolted by a major earthquake on Tuesday, people of the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar had another shock when they saw a new island emerge in the sea, just over a kilometre from the shore.
A local journalist, Bahram Baloch, received the news via a text message from a friend.
“It said a hill has appeared outside my house,” Mr Baloch said.
“I stepped out, and was flabbergasted. I could see this grey, dome-shaped body in the distance, like a giant whale swimming near the surface. Hundreds of people had gathered to watch it in disbelief.”  Bahram BalochLocal journalist
Mr Baloch and some friends landed on the island on Wednesday morning to check it out and to take pictures.
“It’s an oval shaped island which is about 250ft to 300ft (76-91m) in length, and about 60 to 70ft above the water,” he said  It has a rough surface, much of which is muddy and some parts are mostly made up of fine- to coarse-grained sand. One part of it is solid rock, and that is where Mr Baloch and his friends landed.

The island is basically sand, mud, rocks and such rubble.  And will erode away into the sea in not too long future.  The island is almost circular – 175.7m on the long axis and 160.0m on the short axis, giving a total area of 22,726 sq m.

Here are some pictures, courtesy BBC site.


Featured Image (courtesy: BBC) – this picture was taken by Pleiades – which is primarily a French national space project. It comprises two satellites that can resolve features on the ground as small as 50cm across.

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