This study analyzes the exposure of energy and transport assets in Asia and the Pacific to climate change and earthquake hazards and highlights how multi-hazard assessment can help strengthen the resilience of crucial infrastructure. Geolocating and undertaking a multi-hazard assessment of more than 30,000 infrastructure assets, the study identifies significant …
In the aftermath of January's devastating earthquake in Kobe, the Japanese have begun to scrutinise and review disaster management plans that they thought were more than adequate. The major lacuna in post-quake reconstruction, believe Japanese researchers, was the absence of geographical information systems (GIS). As Shigeru Kakumoto, a visiting associate …
HOMES were rebuilt, but the pastures vanished. Money came pouring in but trades were lost. And now the reconstruction of the quake-devastated Marathwada villages by urban thinkers resembled a Babelian confusion. The result: the rehabilitation of the people ended up disrupting the village ecosystem. "Everyone -- the government, the NGOs …
A MAJOR disaster is not enough. It takes censure and orders from the courts to shake the somnolent bureaucracy into action. The still-traumatised Marathwada quake victims have created history by resorting to public interest litigations (PIL) to ensure relief through the natural disaster management efforts of the government. "Such legal …
While the Marathwada quake victims waited for succour, lucre and its distribution ensnared the NGOs, the voluble critics of government's callous habits, in attritious squabblings. S Parasuraman's paper on NGO activity, presented at the workshop, does not exactly do them pride. In the aftermath of the earthquake, more than 130 …
SUDDENLY, everything was gone: home and hearth, families and friends. The earth had danced a tarantella. And thousands in Marathwada joined the army of the living dead. How much time is enough to erase memories of such an upheaval? In the post-disaster period in Marathwada, mental health did not receive …
THE January 17 earthquake near Kobe in western Japan exacted a grim toll: over 5,000 dead -- and climbing -- and more than 23,600 injured, about 280,000 homeless; heavy infrastructural damage like collapsed highways, railroads and buildings. Epicentred 20 km below the tiny island of Awajishima in the Seto inland …
MASSIVE quake to hit northern India, screamed a headline in a national daily on December 20, 1994. After being stumped by the Latur quake of 1993, Indian geophysicists are back to their obsession with the mysteries that the 3,000-km long Himalayan belt holds under its awesome heights. The latest shockwave …
Maharashtra may be more vulnerable to earthquakes than had been suspected, a study being conducted by the department of earth sciences of the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay indicates. The study was commissioned by the Department of Science and Technology soon after the Latur earthquake in 1993 and is …
Little has been done in India to study dam-induced seismicity despite a lot of environmental heat and dust. To bridge the gap, B K Rastogi and R K Chadha of the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) in Hyderabad have proposed to study the seismicity around the Koyna dam in Maharashtra. …
HUNDREDS of tin sheds catch the eye as you drive down the narrow roads in Ausa taluka in the Latur district of Maharashtra. Coming up next to the sheds are long rows of one- or two-bedroomed houses -- the spanking new, permanent dwellings for those dislocated by last year's earthquake. …
IMAGINE a building swaying like a pendulum so that it doesn't crumble during an earthquake. Engineer Victor Zayas of Earthquake Protection Systems in San Francisco has designed just such a system (Science, Vol 262, No 5139). The new Friction Pendulum System (FPS) is quite unlike others, which dissipate tremor energy …
Delhi is sitting on an unstable pile of sand, warn seismic experts. Earthquake engineering experts thus recommend the micro-zonation (mapping of small areas) of the Capital and other important urban centres of the country. The department of science and technology, the Indian Institute of Technology and the department of earthquake …
Vilasrao B Salunke, father of the pani panchayat concept in the drought-prone Marathwada region in Maharashtra, has evolved quake-resistant houses in areas affected by the September 30 earthquake. Salunke, convenor of the Pune-based Earthquake Disaster Management Group, advocates ferrocement technology to build new houses on existing foundations of the recently …
In the wake of the Latur earthquake, to make sure it doesn't get caught on the wrong foot once again, the Central government plans to set up a network of seismic stations. The Rs 100 crore technology mission will create a databank by establishing seismic observatories and cyclone warning centres, …
WITH LATUR so fresh in the mind, it is with a sense of trepidation that one picks up B V Raman's book. While scientists would obviously scoff at astrology, B V Raman argues convincingly that astrology has not been explored adequately as a valuable tool in anticipating weather and earthquakes. …
AT MIDNIGHT on September 29-30, Gulab Jawalge and his family went to bed, exhausted by the prolonged Ganesh Puja celebrations in their village, Mangrool, in Maharashtra. Less than four hours later, Jawalge found himself trapped in a pile of rubble that his house had become. When he extricated himself half-an-hour …
IT DID not happen in Latur alone. Earthquakes can and do occur in what geologists generally consider peaceful regions of the earth. The 1819 Kutch earthquake and the 1886 Charleston earthquake in South Carolina, USA, are two famous examples of such rare errant behaviour of the earth. Both quakes were …
JUST BEFORE 4 am on September 30, the stylus tracing out the narrow, wavy line on the seismographs at the Indian Meteorological Department's (IMD) seismological observatory in Delhi began to oscillate violently. As the graphs rolling out of the machine's printer began to indicate an earthquake 1,400 km away, the …
REOPENING the Metsamor nuclear power plant is turning out to be a devil of a problem for beleaguered Armenia. The plant had supplied almost half of Armenia's electricity requirements, but was shut down after a devastating earthquake in the area killed 25,000 people in 1988 and raised fears that radiation …
THE TEHRI dam project (TDP) is back in news. Even as engineering experts and scientists reiterated building such a high dam in a seismically sensitive region is hazardous, an offer from a consortium of Russian and Uzbek companies to finance the project brought joy to its proponents. A two-day workshop …
