India’s preparedness in responding to disasters caused by Earthquakes
Shri Y.S.
Chowdary, Minister of State for the Ministry of Science &
Technology and Earth Sciences, in a written reply to a Question in Rajya
Sabha today, informed the House that the Wadia Institute of Himalayan
Geology, Dehradun has established an earthquake monitoring network and a
Multi-Parametric Geophysical Observatory in the region.
Further, the Minister informed that a pilot project on Earthquake Early
Warning (EEW) system is on implementation for northern India, in
Uttarakhand, by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee. The
system is under testing by IIT Roorkee. Such type of system gives some
lead time for issue of warning on occurrence of an earthquake, so that
some remedial actions regarding vacating building, shutting down
critical operations etc may be taken up.
For the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand, there are several research
papers, including the papers from Earth Observatory Singapore, which
have suggested that this region lies in the central seismic gap and no
great earthquake has occurred in this region in past 500 years or so.
Hence, there is a possibility that this region may experience a great
earthquake. However, no time frame of occurrence of such an earthquake
has been specified in these studies, the Minister added.
In order to give a specialized response to natural and man-made
disasters in real time, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is
also functional under the general superintendence, direction and control
of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).
Shri Chowdary, in his reply, also added that the Ministry of Earth
Sciences (MoES) has funded several research programs to the academic and
research institutes which are either located or working in the
Uttarakhand region. It has also supported outreach and earthquake
education programs in the region.
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VM
(Release ID :148378)
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