Where India's natural hazards strike hardest — and why.
India is divided into four seismic zones (Zone II to Zone V, from lowest to highest risk) by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Zone V (highest risk) covers the Himalayan belt, the North-East, Kutch (Gujarat), and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands — largely because of active tectonic plate boundaries (the Indian plate colliding with the Eurasian plate).
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by a massive undersea earthquake off Sumatra, devastated India's south-eastern coast, prompting the creation of the Indian Tsunami Early Warning System. Barren Island (Andaman & Nicobar) is India's only confirmed active volcano.
India's east coast (Bay of Bengal side) is far more cyclone-prone than the west coast, since the Bay of Bengal generates more cyclones and steers many of them toward the Indian coastline. Cyclones are classified by wind speed (from Depression to Super Cyclonic Storm) and named alphabetically by a rotational system among Indian Ocean Rim countries.
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