The pictures emerging from the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu, are shocking.
Durbar square, a Unesco World Heritage Site, has been reduced to rubble. The famous Dharahara Tower has been toppled to leave just a stump.
Nepal is used to quakes – this is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. You only have to look at the Himalayas to understand that.
The mountains are being built as a consequence of the Indian tectonic plate driving under Central Asia (the Eurasian tectonic plate). These two great slabs of the Earth's crust are converging at a relative rate of about 4-5cm (two inches) a year.
The upward climb of Everest and its sister mountains is accompanied by numerous tremors.
David Rothery, a professor of planetary geosciences, at the Open University, UK, commented: "The Himalayan mountains are being thrust over the Indian plate; there are two or three big thrust faults, basically. And some very gently dipping fault will have been what moved, and gave us this event. Casualties are reported in Kathmandu, but we now wait to see how widespread the problems are."
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