Disaster preparedness must in NE

GUWAHATI, January 28: The Gujarat earthquake tragedy has brought into sharp focus the danger facing the inhabitants of the Northeastern region, which is located in one of the high seismic zones of the country. However, ironically attempts to enlighten the people and the Government about the dangers of high-rise buildings not constructed as per norms to withstand a major earthquake are often seen as attempts to frustrate development. A series of reports carried by this paper about a year back, on the possibility of a major earthquake with the magnitude of over 8 on the Richter Scale, hitting the NE region evoked strong condemnation from certain quarters. For, those quarters, connected with real estate development and more particularly, with apartment building, - the new enterprise catching the imagination of the NE money minters nowadays, were afraid of the adverse impact of the reports on their dream projects! Even the Chief Minister of the State was reported to have dismissed the predications cited by the reports as attempts at stalling the process of developments in the State. (Chief Minister's statement on the floor of the Assembly on November 1, 1999). Now that a tragedy caused by an earthquake of relatively smaller magnitude, has struck Gujarat leading to the lose of over 20,000 human lives, residents of many city localities are feeling very much uneasy, let alone the dwellers of the multi-storey buildings - some of whom are having worrisome time. The above stories of The Assam Tribune were based on the findings of seismologist Surya Kanta Sarma and the prediction made by the Discovery Online. However, the findings of Sarma, who has been making a prediction since 1988, that a major earthquake of magnitude bigger than 8 on the Richter Scale, will hit the NE region at any time within 2010, were the main stay of The Assam Tribune Reports. Sarma's prediction is based on his calculations of the return period of high-magnitude earthquakes in the NE region, the accumulation of tectonic stress and the application of the Dilatancy model for predicting earthquakes. Reacting to the Chief Minister's statement, Sarma told The Assam Tribune that his was a pure scientific enquiry to find to the truth. The listlessness or rather ignoring the ground reality is quite evident in the attitude of the State administration towards the threat of a major earthquake for the people of the State. This is well evident from the fact that the State administration is sitting pretty silent over the pleas made by the Assam Science Society a few months back on disaster management in the case of a major earthquake! For those, whom it is always greener on the other side of the fence, here are two predictions made by Soumitra Mukherjee, Assistant Professor at the School of Environmental Sciences in the Jawaharlal Nehru University and the scientists of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG). According to Mukherjee, who was talking to the PTI in New Delhi today, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Western Coastal areas including Gujarat, Konkan and Kerala and Northeastern region of the country are facing high risk period till April this year in terms of susceptibility to earthquakes. Mukherjee had made the forecast about the killer earthquake that shook Gujarat on Friday last. The scientists of WIHG told the PTI at Dehra Dun today that Rann of Kutch region in Gujarat, along with Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeastern region and parts of Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Andaman and Nicobar is the most seismic-prone zones of India. And on the need of disaster preparedness, GD Gupta, Advisor on Earth Sciences and Seismology to the Department of Science and Technology told UNI in New Delhi today, that Gujarat disaster had highlighted the fact that disaster preparedness among the people living in seismologically active zones was limited. They were neighter following building norms for quake resistance nor they were aware of the do's and don'ts at the time of earthquake, Gupta said, adding, "We still lack a legislation to force people and private builders to take preventive measures in their complexes. They tend to overlook the guidelines as observing them would increase the construction cost."