The Ganges River suddenly changed its course after a major earthquake 2,500 years ago

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The Ganges River suddenly changed its course 2,500 years ago following a devastating earthquake, according to a new study that raises concerns about the prevailing risk of giant earthquakes in South Asia.

Researchers, including from Columbia University's Climate School, have discovered a previously undocumented earthquake that struck what is now Bangladesh.

“I don't think we've ever seen this large anywhere before,” said geophysicist Michael Stickler, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature.

The Ganges River forms the second largest river system in the world after the Amazon River in South America, flowing more than 2,500 kilometers through northern India and Bangladesh before joining the Brahmaputra River and emptying into the Bay of Bengal. They form a vast maze of waterways that feed the most densely populated region on the planet.

While earthquakes are known to be one of the major drivers of landscape change, their impact on river courses is not fully understood.

Rivers are known to change their course periodically without the help of earthquakes, but this process usually takes successive floods over a period of years or decades.

When a river changes course, sediments drift upstream, settle, accumulate and eventually cause the river bed to rise higher than the surrounding floodplain.

But when a change in course is caused by an earthquake, sediment flow can occur almost instantaneously.

Significant improvements have been made to the earthquake early warning application

In the new study, scientists evaluated a unique sediment feature that was first discovered in a newly excavated pond near Dhaka that was not yet filled with water.

On one side of the pond, they spotted vertical dams of sand known to be a feature of earthquakes. The researchers said that dams are formed when earthquakes compress buried sand and pump it out of the soil like “sand volcanoes.”

The classic sign of a landscape disrupted by an earthquake is a vein of sand that has been pushed up through dark sediments (Liz Chamberlain)

After further analysis, scientists found that the sand dams in the pond were all created at the same time about 2,500 years ago.

A similar change was detected at a site about 85 kilometers downstream.

The researchers said these changes are evidence of the river's former main channel, which ran about 100 kilometers south of Dhaka.

This fossil channel of the Ganges is a low-lying area about 1.5 km wide that extends intermittently for about 100 km parallel to the current course of the river.

The extinct canal is frequently flooded and is mainly used for rice cultivation, scientists said.

The lowlands of Bangladesh are in many places a subtle mixture of land and water that sometimes changes places (Photo by Steve Goodbread)

The researchers concluded from their findings that there was a “large and sudden upheaval caused by an earthquake estimated at magnitude 7 or 8” that struck the region two and a half thousand years ago.

They added that the earthquake was likely caused by a huge sub-ocean tectonic plate that pushed under Bangladesh, Myanmar and northeastern India.

Scientists note that these areas are still experiencing stress and earthquakes of similar strength could be produced again in this densely populated area.

“Large earthquakes affect large areas and can have long-term economic, social and political impacts,” said Syed Humayun Akhtar, vice-chancellor of Bangladesh Open University and author of the study.

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