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.

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.

Other earthquake observatories in India

• Currently, India has only 115 earthquake observatories.
• Some of them are:

• National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad
• Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), Dehradun
• North East Institute of Science & Technology (NEIST), Jorhat