NEW DELHI: With an earthquake, though on a lesser scale, actually striking the Himalayas, including the Northeast, few days after media reports in this regard, the seismologists and scientists are more worried about forewarning the possible victims.
On Wednesday, earthquake shook the North East and IMD pronounced it as 5.8-magnitude quake while the US Geological Service measured it at 5.9 on the Richter scale.
Tremors from the quake were felt in Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Nagaon and Guwahati and Imphal in Manipur. There are no reports of any casualties so far.
Stronger 6.3-magnitude earthquakes struck Tibet and Nepal almost same time but it is not known if it was part of the same jolt.
Scientists have said that a mega earthquake of magnitude 8.5 or more is long overdue in the Himalayan region but India has not learnt from past mistakes.
It is also far from being prepared for such an eventuality with no strategy to caution people beforehand and minimise loss of life and property, they felt.
The government must ensure seismic safety, scientists from all over the country who gathered last week for a global workshop at Mandi said.
Only few days ago, they had concurred that an earthquake of the magnitude of 8.5 or more is likely to rock the Himalayan region.
Numerous research groups, including one at IIT Roorkee, are in the process of developing earthquake early warning systems which could give people up to a minute of warning before the quake.
However, such short term predictions are not best way forward, said Dr Supriyo Mitra from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata.
Even if seismologists are able to provide an early warning to enable people to safely vacate their buildings before an earthquake, their homes would still be destroyed. This will turn a whole society into refugees, he said.
Engineers can work out the vulnerability of the structures and tell you the mechanism by which they can be made resistant,” said Dr Mitra, one of the participants at the workshop.
Implementing these would reduce the risk to human lives and property in the event of a disaster.
Participants at the workshop also raised questions on how socio-economically weaker sections would invest in building earthquake resistant buildings.
Dr Durgesh C Rai from IIT Kanpur said it is the right of every individual to have seismic safety, and the government has to ensure that.
The participants were worried that even publicly-funded government buildings in Himalayan states such as Sikkim and Manipur could not survive even low intensity earthquakes on earlier occasions. In case of major tremors such buildings will be reduced to dust, they agreed.
Early warning system as safety measures should not be an optional feature that people have to ask for, they said.
Rather, all buildings should be built to be earthquake safe by default – much like medical instruments are sterilized before use.
The participants pointed out that many older buildings in the Himalayan area have survived earthquakes for decades, and these could serve as lessons for our future.
