Witoubou Newmai
The fast advancing world is still unable to prove its worth when it comes to tackling natural calamities. The modern world continues to hobble to mitigate the fear of an earthquake. This is quite discouraging.
The government’s continued failure to absorb earthquake trauma despite proclamation of progress and development is also quite disappointing. One glaring reason can be that the concerned authorities do not allow themselves the fertility of innovation.
Recent media reports on “major earthquake lurking under the Himalayan region,” therefore, are quite disturbing. Seismologists, for quite sometimes, have been reporting the discovery of "new evidence of increasing strain" in the two tectonic plates beneath the region.
The reports ominously said that in the event of such massive earthquakes, urban areas in eastern India will turn into “ruins". "A stretch of the central Himalayan region is ripe for an earthquake more powerful than any it has experienced over the past 700 years,” scientists have warned.
Likewise, a news report in The Telegraph daily last year stated that three Indian geophysicists have excavated fresh evidence for a “massive build-up of tectonic strain along a 600 km stretch of the central Himalayas” long overdue for release through an earthquake that they say could flatten unprotected structures hundreds of kilometres away.
"Their findings, just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, suggest that this central Himalayan region that extends from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh to the Bihar-Nepal border has not experienced any earthquake of magnitude 8 since the 14th century," stated the news report.
This relatively quiescent phase implies that the tectonic strain that results from the Indian plate pushing against the Asian plate has accumulated there without adequate release for nearly 700 years, it added.
“This segment is mature – it’s ready for a really big earthquake,” said Chittenipattu Rajendran, Professor of Geodynamics at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, who led the study, “We can say that now with even greater confidence than before – but we cannot say when”.
While such reports are mostly concerned with the Himalayan region, we cannot escape the fact that the North East region is sitting atop a vulnerable zone.
In such a scenario, planned preparedness from the authorities can mitigate fears to a great extent. It is not about measures to prevent natural calamities but planned preparedness to minimize loss and destruction.
As one of the calamities most difficult to predict, planned preparedness is the best answer to the problem of Earthquakes. One thing is clear, earthquakes do not cause casualties directly, but it is the collapsing of weak structures that take lives.
Consequently, faulty constructions and designing should be dealt with as per the norms and guidelines. The Himalayan region building codes and BIS building codes should be enforced by the authorities.
Unfortunately, our authorities are only armed with debris clearing gears, not with codes and regulation. The authorities should not wait until the next calamity; rather they need to become more proactive.
It is high time the government works to find means to mitigate the impact of the deadly calamity. According to experts, the state capital Kohima is located not only on high-risk seismic zone but also a town that has been built on loose soil. The government should immediately start the spadework to meet this onerous challenge.
