People walk on an island that that rose from the sea just off Pakistan™s southern coast following Tuesday™s earthquake on September 25, 2013.<\/p>\n
A new island that rose from the sea just off Pakistan™s southern coast following Tuesday™s earthquake is emitting methane gas.\n<\/p>\n
The 7.7-magnitude quake, which killed at least 328 people, occurred on Tuesday at 4:29 p.m. local time (1129 GMT). Its epicenter was 20 kilometers below ground in the Awaran district of southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Iran.\n<\/p>\n
The powerful quake caused the seabed to rise and create a new island about 600 meters off the South Asian country™s Gwadar coastline in the Arabian Sea.\n<\/p>\n
A man living near the coastline sent a text message to local journalist Bahram Baloch, saying œa hill has appeared outside my house.”\n<\/p>\n
“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,” the text message said.\n<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning, Baloch and some of his friends visited the island and took photographs.\n<\/p>\n
“It’s an oval shaped island which is about 250 to 300 feet (76-91 meters) in length, and about 60 to 70 feet (18-21 meters) above the water,” he said\n<\/p>\n
“There were dead fish on the surface. And on one side we could hear the hissing sound of the escaping gas,” Baloch stated.\n<\/p>\n
Baloch and his friends put a match to the fissures from where methane was emitting, and set it on fire.\n<\/p>\n
“We put the fire out in the end, but it was quite a hassle. Not even the water could kill it, unless one poured buckets over it,” he added.\n<\/p>\n
Muhammad Danish, a marine biologist from Pakistan™s National Institute of Oceanography, said a team of experts landed on the island on Wednesday and found methane gas coming out.\n<\/p>\n
œOur team found bubbles rising from the surface of the island which caught fire when a match was lit and we forbade our team to start any flame. It is methane gas,” Danish confirmed.\n<\/p>\n
Rashid Tabrez, the director general of National Institute of Oceanography, said, “The seabed near the Makran coast has vast deposits of gas hydrates, or frozen gas having a large methane content.”\n<\/p>\n
“These deposits lay compressed under a sediment bed that is 300 meters to 800 meters thick,” he added.\n<\/p>\n
“When the plates along the fault-lines move, they create heat and the expanding gas blasts through the fissures in the earth’s crust, propelling the entire sea floor to the surface,” Tabrez explained.\n<\/p>\n
He also said that the island that emerged near Gwadar is the fourth in this region since 1945.\n<\/p>\n
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