New island unlikely to last, experts say

GWADAR: A small island created in the Arabian Sea by the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that hit southwest Pakistan in Baluchistan’s remote Awaran district has fascinated locals but experts say it is unlikely to last long.

Off the coastline near the port of Gwadar, around 400km from the epicentre, locals were astonished to see a new piece of land surface from the waves after the quake.

Mohammad Danish, a marine biologist from Pakistan’s National Institute of Oceanography, said a team of experts had visited the island and found methane gas rising. ‘‘Our team found bubbles rising from the surface of the island which caught fire when a match was lit and we forbade our team to start any flame. It is methane gas,’’ Mr Danish said on GEO television news. The island is about 18 to 21m high, up to 91 wide and up to 36m long, he said. It sits about 200m away from the coast.

Gary Gibson, a seismologist with Australia’s University of Melbourne, said the new island was likely to be a ‘‘mud volcano’’, created by methane gas forcing material upwards.