THE massive earthquakes that hit Nepal on April 25th and May 12th—measuring magnitude 7.8 and 7.3 respectively—took place, as most large earthquakes do, on a boundary between two of the Earth’s tectonic plates—in this case, the Indo-Australian plate and the Eurasian plate. Plates are rigid structures made up from the Earth’s crust and the upper layer of its mantle which move around as single entit
![Where earthquakes happen, and why](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/96803858b75f955a691b8dc2bb95b41a00d3d60e/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.static-economist.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2F2015%2F04%2Fblogs%2Feconomist-explains%2F20150502_blp506.jpg)