India to get 31 new quake observatories by next year

NEW DELHI: As part of its efforts to detect and record earthquake parameters more accurately and identify possible precursors of tremors, the government has decided to install 31 additional seismological observatories in different parts of the country by March next year.

The ground motion data recorded by the digital seismograph are used for estimation of magnitude and other earthquake parameters. The network of such ground stations will help the earth scientists to develop a robust early warning system.

A pilot project on earthquake early warning (EEW) system is currently under implementation for northern India by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee which is being funded by the ministry of earth sciences (MoES). "Such type of systems gives a lead time of a few seconds to little more than a minute for issue of warning on occurrence of an earthquake so that some remedial actions regarding va cating building and shutting down critical operations may be taken up", said an official of the MoES.

At present, there is no scientific technique available to predict the occurrence of earthquakes with reasonable degree of accuracy with regard to space, time and magnitude.

"Nevertheless, efforts are being made world-over, including India, to monitor and study various earthquake precursory phenom ena in critical seismo-tectonic regions, which would not only help understand the earthquake generation processes better but also lead to identifying possible earthquake precursors, which may serve as useful predictors in future", said the official. At present the National Centre of Seismology (NCS) of the MoES maintains a National Seismological Network (NSN) comprising of 84 digital permanent seismological field stations.