State still to have quake warning system

Ajay Ramola

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, July 28

The severe earthquake in Nepal on April 25 and aftershocks that resulted in the death of over 9,000 people and injury to thousands of people were also felt in Uttarakhand.

Uttarakhand has also suffered major earthquakes and subsequent devastation namely in Uttarkashi and Chamoli in the past decades and even mild tremors felt frequently are a cause for worry for the state government.

Geologists believe Uttarakhand is highly prone to a potentially devastating earthquake exposing a population around 50 per cent to such disaster. The experts believe that most of the deaths

during earthquakes occur due to collapsing of buildings. Earthquakes occurring at nights are much worse as people die while asleep. Under such circumstances, the state government’s preparedness for such calamities is questionable, especially when early earthquake alarm systems are available in the market that could provide valuable escape time to the people, saving precious lives.

Successive state governments had agreed that five districts of the state fall under the seismic zone-V and are very sparsely populated. But it has failed to develop a system to help devastation caused by earthquakes at night.

However, considering the government’s pace in contemplating any project residents are sceptical that it would ever get such systems. The issue of Dopple radars installation is still hanging fire that otherwise could have helped in averting deaths due to cloudbursts. The technology around the world is changing at a good pace and Americans are developing earthquake early alarm systems and marketing them around the world, providing a cheap alternative to the people who live in earthquake-prone regions of the state, says Ashish Agarwal, Managing Director of Apex Comnet (P) Ltd, who is a former student of Oak Grove School and St Joseph’s Academy in Dehradun.

He got the idea of importing this product came when the recent earthquake in Nepal shook northern India. His daughter asked him, “What if an earthquake comes at night?” This simple question led Ashish to import and market this small instrument.

Ashish says the earthquake alarm works on two AAA size batteries. The alkaline cells lasts almost a year. “You mount the alarm on the wall and align its small bubble in the center and then switch it on. As soon as an earthquake measuring over 4.0 on the Richter Scale strikes, the unit will sound a loud alarm. This unit will not be activated by passing trucks.”

President of the state disaster mitigation and management committee Prayag Bhatt says he was not aware of any such technology and if such technology is useful for the state he would look into it.