Govt plans to establish 100 observatories to expand seismological network

India plans to establish 100 more observatories in the next two to three years to further enhance seismic monitoring capabilities, Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh told the Rajya Sabha on Thursday.

In a written reply, Singh said the National Centre for Seismology (NCS) maintains a network of 152 observatories for monitoring of seismic activity in and around the country.

He said the National Seismological Network has a detection capability down to magnitude 3.0 earthquake for most parts of the country.

Singh said natural disasters are triggered by natural processes and not always affected by the human consequences. However, vulnerability of any region is always affected by non-engineered structures, he said.

"Thus, there is a need to devise proper mitigation strategies by adopting scientific and engineering solutions to reduce the associated risks," the minister said.

He said seismic microzonation study was important as it helps generate inputs for constructing earthquake-resilient buildings/infrastructures/dwellings to reduce and mitigate the impacts of earthquake shaking and for minimising the damages to structures and loss of lives for safer urban planning.