Tamil Nadu - Vellore   

Call to evolve quake warning system

Photo: D. Gopalakrishnan

Fighting catastrophe: T. Ramasami, Secretary, DST, speaking at the national roundtable meeting on ‘Vision 2020: disaster management as a component of higher engineering education’ at the VIT University in Vellore on Wednesday. —

VELLORE: India should build a strong base of earth scientists to create a system of earthquake forewarning, T. Ramasami, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology (DST), has said.

He was inaugurating a national roundtable meeting on ‘Vision 2020: disaster education as a component of higher engineering education’ under the auspices of the Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management (CDMM) at the VIT University here on Wednesday. Dr. Ramasami said devastation following a natural disaster was often caused by the collapse of man-made structures, which were unable to withstand the energy released. The Department of Earth Sciences has commissioned a device to forewarn tsunami half an hour earlier. But, India is yet to come up with a system to warn about impending earthquakes, which cause the maximum devastation.

Hence, science and technology should come up with ideas for retrofitting the existing buildings to make them quake-resistant, he said.

Owing to advancements in cyclone forewarning systems, loss of lives has been minimised. With further developments, it would be possible to reduce it to a even few hundreds or nil in the future. Another area of research should be on manipulating cyclonic storms to totally avoid loss of lives by 2020. Natural disasters affect the poor more than the others.

Science and technology should, therefore, address the problems of the poor, vis-À-vis their ability to manage the disasters. All nations should collaborate in evolving an effective natural disaster-forewarning systems, Dr. Ramasami said.

P.S. Goel, president of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, said if accurate systems are installed for forewarning fog, it would be possible for airlines to take precautionary measures to avoid accidents or flight delays. Similarly, loss to wheat farmers could also be minimised.

G. Viswanathan, Chancellor of VIT University, said disaster education cannot be achieved by merely opening new institutions and colleges or by starting new programmes in existing institutions. Accreditation of institutions and quality assurance of degrees and diplomas awarded is fundamental to the realisation of disaster education in its true sense.

R.K. Bhandari, director, CDMM, welcomed the gathering.

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