India-led group of 27 to develop model for earthquake warning

A satellite expected to be launched by 2019

BS Reporter  |  Chennai 

July 15, 2015 Last Updated at 19:20 IST

Scientists, Geophysicists, and Seismologists from 27 countries are working under India's leadership on to develop early warning system for earthquakes to predict them some seconds before they occur.

Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India Shailesh Nayak at a summit on 'Combating Earthquake Disasters' in Kolkata said that if the effort is successful and the model is developed, this could reduce the number of human casualties substantially.

He said, before earthquakes, some chemical changes under the earth's surface and some physical displacements on the surface occur and hoped if parameters are developed to observe, study and analyse these changes, the quakes can be predicted.
India is expected to launch a satellite by 2019 which will send images of surface displacement up to the accuracy of few centimeters, said Nayak.

It may be noted, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT Madras) under the guidance of Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is building a nano-satellite weighing less than 15 kg, to study various issues including understanding the effects of solar storms, lightning storms and earthquakes.
He added that in the coming years deep bore wells filled with sensors and other equipment will be put in place in all seismically active regions in the country to sense the chemical and physical changes under the earth's surface.
At present 22 states in India are prone to earthquakes of various intensities like Severe, High, Moderate and Low and urban explosion and densely populated cities with high rise buildings makes the quake scenario worse.
During last one decade, 11 earthquakes of magnitude five or above on Richter scale has shaken India.