India’s preparedness in responding to disasters caused by Earthquak

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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(Release ID :148378)