35 new seismological observatories to become operational by Dec: Govt
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The National Center for Seismology (NCS) will commission 35 new stations by December, taking the strength of seismological network to 150, Lok Sabha was informed on July 23.
In a written response to a question, Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh said additional 100 new stations will be installed by March 2026.
The NCS, under the Ministry of Earth Science, is the nodal agency of the government for monitoring and to study earthquakes in and around the country. For this purpose, the NCS maintains a National Seismological Network (NSN) consisting of 115 observatories spread across the country.
The network is capable of recording any event of magnitude five and above in and around New Delhi, magnitude three and above for northeast region, magnitude 3.5 in and above in peninsular, magnitude four and above in the Andaman region and magnitude 4.5 and above in border regions.
In order to spatially densify the gap areas and to improve the magnitude detection threshold down to magnitude three in the country, 35 new stations have been planned in the country and installation is already in progress.
It is also planned to strengthen the National Seismological Network further by adding 100 seismic stations in the next five years to increase the detection capability of earthquake up to magnitude 2.5 throughout the country.
“All the 35 new stations shall be commissioned and will start functioning by December 2021. Thus, the strength of National Seismological Network will increase to 150 by December 2021. Subsequently, additional 100 new stations will be installed by March 2026,” Mr. Singh said.
Responding to a separate question on prediction of earthquakes, he said, there is no proven scientific technique available, anywhere in the world, to predict or forecast in advance the occurrence of earthquakes with the reasonable degree of accuracy with regard to space, time and magnitude. No country has the capability of predicting the occurrence of earthquakes in advance.
However, research efforts are made in India and elsewhere for developing an Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) System, to alert people once an earthquake occurs based on the arrival time of P-wave of the Earthquake.
The warning time, however, is much shorter and of the order of a few seconds. The robustness and success rate of such warning system are to be assessed thoroughly before the system can be considered for real time operations, he said.
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