A huge earthquake that shook southern Asia 2,500 years ago abruptly changed the course of the Ganges River, new research suggests.
The earthquake was previously unknown to science, but researchers spotted clues of its immense force buried in the landscape near Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. The team revealed its findings in a study published Monday (June 17) in the journal Nature Communications. The quake likely reached magnitude 7.5 or 8 and was so powerful it rerouted the main stem of the Ganges — despite the displaced section of river being more than 110 miles (180 kilometers) away from the quake's epicenter.
