IIT Roorkee installs quake sensors in Uttarakhand

IIT Roorkee has installed 89 sensors out of a total of 100 to be set up from Uttarkashi to Chamoli in Uttarakhand as part of a project launched by the Centre to alert people within seconds of an earthquake across north India.
The sensors have been installed by the premier institute under aMinistry of Earth Sciencesproject named 'Earthquake Early Warning System' for northern India, Principal Investigator of the project and IIT Roorkee professor, Ashok Kumar said today.
A total of 100 sensors are to be installed between Uttarkashi and Chamoli as part of the project, out of which 89 have already been installed, he said.

Kumar, professor in IIT Roorkee's Earthquake Engineering Department noted that the next sensor will be set up on the campus and the project is likely to be complete by the middle of 2016.
Imported from Taiwan, these sensors can alert people about an earthquake within seconds of their occurrence through sound waves and can help minimise their effect, he said.
Parts of Uttarakhand including Chamoli and Uttarkashi come under seismic zone V and experts opine that a major earthquake can occur in the hill state anytime due to a huge tectonic stress build-up in the Himalayan region over the centuries.

The June earthquake in Nepal and the recent one in Afghanistan should serve as a wake up call for people in Uttarakhand so that they are better prepared for such an eventuality, Executive Director of State Disaster Mitigation and Management Centre, Piyush Rautela told PTI in Dehradun.
Geologists and seismologists in a recent conference at Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun had stated that the release of tectonic stress build-up in the form of a quake will mainly affect the central Himalayan region of which Uttarakhand is a part.