Gurugram highrises to have quake alarm soon

Sumedha Sharma

Gurugram, March 23

With Gurugram cited as most dangerous and earthquake-prone in the NCR, the district administration is planning to ask realtors to install early earthquake warning and security system in all high-rise buildings. The system issues warning at least 30 seconds before actual quake hits.

“We are mulling the plan and getting structural audits done. Quake resistance is one of the key factors of this audit. In addition, we will ask builders to install warning systems in all high-rise buildings,” said Nishant Yadav, Deputy Commissioner.

Conceived first in 2016 after the Nepal earthquake, Gurugram had one such system installed at the Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) building, but since 2019, the system has failed to send any alert.

Sitting on seven fault seismic lines, Gurugram is the riskiest area in the NCR. The entire city falls under the seismic zone 4. Apart from the Jaipur depression, many normal faults pass through Gurugram. If these become active, it can cause an earthquake of 7.5 magnitude. The city houses highest number of high-rise buildings in the NCR and has felt tremors and aftershocks in the past. The city has around 4,000 registered high-rise buildings but it still awaits long-promised quake audits. There has been no dedicated audit to check the compliance of the National Building Code of India.

Meanwhile, multi-state mega mock drill is set to be held in the NCR on March 24.