The Hindu : Front Page : Varsity project on seismological study

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 19, 2006

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Varsity project on seismological study

P. Sudhakar

Students at the secondary level to be engaged in acquisition of data

TIRUNELVELI : To educate school children on seismology and train them in protecting themselves during earthquakes, the Union Government Department of Science and Technology has sanctioned a project worth Rs. 2.19 crore to Centre for Geo-technology of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University.

University sources told The Hindu that after some parts of Tamil Nadu, especially coastal regions and areas near `quake-prone points', had been identified as `seismically active region', the six-month-old Centre for Geo-technology sent a proposal to the DST for the project, involving research institutes and the secondary schools.

Since the DST has already sanctioned a similar project to schools in north-eastern States in the Himalayan region, under the `Mission Mode Project', it has reportedly approved this project christened `Kanyakumari Schools Observation Programme on Earthquake Monitoring'.

Fifty schools in the coastal areas between Kanyakumari and Chennai would be selected and a low-cost earthquake recording equipment — `Seismometer' — worth about Rs. 1.50 lakh installed in the schools after training two teachers each from the institutions.

The teachers would be trained in recording all sorts of vibrations — vertically and horizontally weak and strong tremors — with the help of the seismometer armed with a computer.

Since the teachers, trained by experts of the university, would teach the children the techniques of recording data, they would collect information, which would be routed to the Centre for Geo-technology, nodal centre of the project, for further analysis.

All information collected from the 50 schools everyday would be compiled and sent to the research institutes concerned.

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