SHILLONG: A one-day stakeholder workshop on development and implementation of a real-time Earthquake Loss Information System for Shillong (ELISA) which was held on Monday at the State Convention Center here, hazards mitigation in the vent of a mega earthquake.
Delivering a presentation on the occasion, Dominik Lang, Earthquake Hazard and Risk, NORSAR, Norway said that Shillong is surrounded by seismic faults.
“Some of the faults have never in our lifetime ever created a bigger earthquake but it is always shown in history that there are earthquakes happening somewhere in the world suddenly in a place where we haven’t had experienced earthquakes before,” he said.
Referring to the North East, he pointed out that North East India has witnessed the most severe earthquakes of entire South East Asia.
Lang said that the ELISA project will be conducted in three phases. The first phase will focus on scenario based ELE for Shillong, the second phase will be on installation of local seismic strong motion network, the third being the implementation of real time ELE System (ELISA).
Meanwhile, PK Ryngnga, Assistant Professor, Geography department, NEHU said, “As urbanization progresses worldwide on the one hand, earthquake also poses serious threats to live and property for urban areas on the other hand, particularly those which are located on the major active faults on land.”
According to her, earthquake early warning system can be very useful for reducing earthquake hazards if the spatial relation between cities and earthquake sources is favorable for such warning and the citizens are probably trained to respond to earthquake warning messages.
“An earthquake early warning system forewarns an urban area of forthcoming strong shaking normally with a few seconds to a few tens of seconds of warning time, i.e. before the arrival of the destructive S-wave part of the strong ground motion,” she said.
“Even a few seconds of advance warning time will be useful for pre-programmed emergency measures for various critical facilities such as rapid transit vehicles and high speed trains to avoid potential derailment,” Ryngnga said.
Speaking on ELISA, she said that it will be useful to minimize fire hazards, control shutdown of high technological manufacturing operations and also to safeguard computer facilities to avoid loss of vital data bases.
“The workshop will explore the practical approach to earthquake early warning system here in Shillong as the “the city of Shillong is located on the most vulnerable active tectonic zones,” she said.
She informed the gathering that the city of Shillong and its surroundings are likely to be affected by earthquake generated by variety of different seismology faults as the region is buttress by the Himalayan collision zone to the North and the Indo-Burman subduction zone to the east.
Representatives from State PWD, NEHU, Meghalaya Architects Forum, Assam Engineering College, Department of Civil Engineering were present on this day.