Tripura NGOs demand immediate steps to counter earthquake loss

Agartala: Five leading civil society organisations of Tripura on Sunday demanded safety audit of all the constructions and buildings of the state to ensure earthquake vulnerability assessment following recent tremor epic centre at Dhalai district.
Addressing media here the executives of public advocacy group ARPAN Society, Tripura Yuktibad Vikash Mancha, Agartala Cycle Club, Call for Need and Manab Seva Parisad stated that the recent earthquake ensured a fault line in Indian tectonic plate under earth surface of the state besides, close vicinity of Eurasian plate, Indian plate and Myanmar plate at Manipur-Mizoram border.
“Unfortunately, there is no research activity of seismology, geology and geo-physics to deal with earthquake related issues in Northeast despite the region has been identified as fifth vulnerable zone in the world. As a result, nobody knows the exact tectonic activities under earth surface except the information that high intensity earth quake is long overdue in the region,” said Ashok Choudhury, one of the executives of the group.
He however, pointed out that the buildings of Tripura both public and private are not built as per earthquake resistance code because of lack of supervision in the construction work.
The government sponsored housing for the poor which was build under various schemes are not at all earthquake resistance, which became vulnerable for  massive disaster, he stated.
The organisations jointly submitted a memorandum to CM Manik Sarkar followed by interaction with Chief Secretary Y P Singh seeking immediate steps for micro zonation, bringing experts for research on impending threat of earthquake and to include seismology related issues in school, college and university level curriculum besides, auditing safety norms of all the buildings.
They demanded to undertake a strategy to retrofit the vulnerable buildings both private and public, ensure all upcoming public buildings and infrastructures are to be built as per earthquake resistance code, city planning and provide assistance for earthquake resistance construction and retrofitting. (UNI)