Udhampur gets earthquake observatory

The government recently inaugurated a seismological observatory in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir.

The National Centre for Seismology (NCS) in the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has initiated several new measures to upgrade and strengthen the infrastructural facilities.
They aim to provide better scientific inputs required for improving disaster mitigation and preparedness measures.
It has installed 152 permanent observatories throughout the country with and plans to install 100 more in the next five years.

Need for Earthquake Observatories:

The occurrence of an earthquake is a natural process, beyond human power. Hence, prevention is the only way.
Further, the Indian subcontinent is considered as one of the world's most disaster-prone areas in terms of earthquakes, landslides, floods, cyclones, and tsunamis.

Objective of the project

It is part of an effort titled Seismic Microzonation, which aims to generate vital geotechnical and seismological parameters for developing earthquake risk resilient building design codes for structures and infrastructures.
It has initiated actions for the setting up of an earthquake early warning system (EEWS) on a pilot basis for a small area in the Himalayas.
It has a precise mandate of collecting, collating and integrating various data sets to provide site-specific risk maps as per user needs.

What are earthquake observatories?

eqServer is an automatic data management, real-time display and earthquake notification system.

About the Earthquake management

Forecasting a probable timing, location, magnitude and other important features of a forthcoming seismic event is called earthquake prediction.
Various attempts have been made by seismologists and others to create effective systems for precise earthquake predictions, including the VAN method.
Seismological instruments can generate large amounts of data.
Systems for processing such data include:
- CUSP (Caltech-USGS Seismic Processing)
- RadExPro seismic software
- SeisComP3

Significance of the region

Jammu and Kashmir is the westernmost extension of the Himalayas.
Udhampur district lies between the two major seismogenic faults, namely Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) and Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), which are among the potential factors for generating earthquakes in the J&K region.
The new seismological observatory will help further strengthen the region’s earthquake monitoring.

Earthquakes in India

The earthquake is characterized bysevere shaking of the ground and severe shaking of structures above the ground.
According to the National Disaster Management Authority, this happens due to the release of the transmitted pressure of moving lithospheric or crustal plates.
According to seismic zoning mapping, earthquake zones are divided on the basis of the estimation of the intensity of the earthquake.
India is divided into 4 zones: Zone 2, Zone 3, Zone 4, and Zone 5.
While Zone 2 is the least dangerous, Zone 5 is the most dangerous.
Nearly, 59% of India’s land area is under a moderate to severe seismic hazard warning, which means that India is prone to earthquakes of magnitude 7 and above.