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| Image Courtesy: pnsn.org |
India has installed an earthquake early warning system for the first time to detect earthquakes and disseminate warnings in Uttarakhand. The researchers have predicted an earthquake of magnitude 8 or greater in the region, The Hindu reported.
“All sensors [systems] that warn of earthquakes are based on the detection of P and S waves generated during an earthquake. The P wave, which is harmless and travels faster than the S wave, is detected by the sensors for advance warning,” The Hindu has quoted Piyoosh Rautela, executive director of the State Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre as saying.
The first earthquake early system has been installed in Dehradun, and the second will be established at Pithoragarh in the Kumaon region by Saturday.
The neighbouring country Nepal has already installed an earthquake early warning system which can inform about the earthquake 10-22 seconds in advance. The country was severely devastated by April 2015 earthquake which claimed lives of around 9,000 people.
Earthquake early warning systems have been deployed in only a handful of the world's seismic hot zones, Reuters quoted seismologist Peggy Hellweg, of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley as saying. They can warn of quakes as much as a few minutes before they strike. Countries with such systems include Mexico, Japan, and the United States, where the most advanced system is California's state-run ShakeAlert.
Uttarakhand earthquake prediction
A new research partly funded by the Indian government has predicted a great quake never seen in centuries to strike Uttarakhand region of India.
A 700-year-old ‘fault’ beneath the state has reached a tipping point, an Indo-Australian team of experts has found, The Hindustan Times reported.
The team was funded partly by the India’s ministry of earth sciences, department of science and technology as well as by the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund.