DUSHANBE, November 2013, Asia-Plus -- The number of homes that were destroyed in a Vahdat earthquake on November 10 has reportedly increased.

Ubaidullo Davlatov, who represents the Vahdat Township in the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament), says that members of a special republican commission for removal of effects of November 10 earthquake, led by deputy Prime Minister, Murodali Alimardon, yesterday visited all settlements that had been affected by the earthquake.

“The commission revealed that the earthquake totally destroyed 118 homes and partially damaged 259 homes in the villages adjacent to the Vahdat Township,” said MP.  “Twelve persons have sustained various injuries in the earthquake and medical aid has already been provided to them.”

According to him, the government sent 130 heated tents, food products and medicines to Vahdat yesterday evening.

“In the near future, the government will consider the issue of providing financial assistance and allotting plots of land for housing to the quake-affected people,” Davlatov said.

The epicenter of the November 10 earthquake, which had a magnitude of 5.0 on the MSK-64 scale, was near the village of Andigon in Vahdat, some 26 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe.  In Dushanbe, the quake reportedly measured 4.0 on the MSK-64 scale.

The Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale, also known as the MSK or MSK-64, is a macroseismic intensity scale used to evaluate the severity of ground shaking on the basis of observed effects in an area of the earthquake occurrence.  The scale was first proposed by Sergei Medvedev (USSR), Wilhelm Sponheuer (East Germany), and Vit Karnik (Czechoslovakia) in 1964.  It was based on the experiences being available in the early 1960s from the application of the Modified Mercalli scale and the 1953 version of the Medvedev scale, known also as the GEOFIAN scale.

With minor modifications in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the MSK scale became widely used in Europe and the USSR.  In early 1990s, the European Seismological Commission (ESC) used many of the principles formulated in the MSK in the development of the European Macroseismic Scale, which is now a de facto standard for evaluation of seismic intensity in European countries.  MSK-64 is still being used in India, Israel, Russia, and throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The MSK scale is somewhat similar to the Modified Mercalli (MM) scale used in the United States.  The MSK scale has 12 intensity degrees.