The M7.8 April 25, 2015, Gorkha earthquake in Nepal was produced by a slip on the low-angle Main Himalayan Thrust, a décollement below the Himalaya that emerges at the surface in the south as the Himalayan Frontal Thrust (HFT). The analysis of the SAR interferograms led to the interpretations that the event was a blind thrust and did not produce surface ruptures associated with the seismogenic fault. We conducted a quick field survey along four active faults near the epicentral area around the Kathmandu Valley (the Jhiku Khola fault, Chitlang fault, Kulekhani fault, Malagiri fault and Kolphu Khola fault) from July 18–22, 2015. Those faults are located in the Lesser Himalaya on the hanging side of the HFT. Based on our field survey carried out in the area where most typical tectonic landforms are developed, we confirmed with local inhabitants the lack of any new surface ruptures along these faults. Our observations along the Jhiku Khola fault showed that the fault had some definite activities during the Holocene times. Though in the past it was recognized as a low-activity thrust fault, our present survey has revealed that it has been active with a predominantly right-lateral strike-slip with thrust component. A stream dissecting a talus surface shows approximately 7-m right-lateral offset, and a charcoal sample collected from the upper part of the talus deposit yielded an age of 870 ± 30 y.B.P, implying that the talus surface formed close to 870 y.B.P. Accordingly, a single or multiple events of the fault must have occurred during the last 900 years, and the slip rate we estimate roughly is around 8 mm/year. The fault may play a role to recent right-lateral strike-slip tectonic zone across the Himalayan range. Since none of the above faults showed any relationship corresponding to the April 25 Gorkha earthquake, it is possibility that a potential risk of occurrence of large earthquakes does exist close to the Kathmandu Valley due to movements of these active faults, and more future work such as paleoseismological survey is needed to assess the risk.
