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 …
July 29 was a black day for those residents of the old Tehri town who had decided to remain back. At around 2 pm, the water in the lake surrounding the almost empty town rose and entered their homes. The 20 or so families left had to run for their …
The Tehri dam project has always been embroiled in controversies. The initial protests against the dam started in the late 1960s when surveys were conducted at the dam site. An organised movement took shape after the Planning Commission gave its nod to the dam in 1972. In the 1980s and …
DAM officials, contractors and technical experts supporting the dam have been quick to brush aside the tunnel collapse as a mere lapse. But nothing related to the Rs 6,000 crore-plus project has simple answers. In its 26th year of construction, the project has been most controversial. Since 1980, at least …
This paper shows that attenuation formula for peak ground acceleration (PGA) for Chile subduction zone, derived from a homogeneous database for thrust interplate and inslab of intermediate depth earthquakes recorded on ‘hard rock’ and ‘rock and hard soil’, give systematically higher values than universal formulas proposed for subduction zones. Also …
geologists have found that there are sudden and pronounced changes in the water level of wells in the Thar Desert before an earthquake. The observation raises the possibility of using wells to predict the seismic activity. The geologists, D Muralidharan, Rolland Andrade and U Satyanarayana of the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical …
A National Contingency Action Plan (CAP)for dealing with contingencies arising in the wake of natural disasters has been formulated by the Government of India and it had been eriodically updated. It facilitates the launching of relief operations without delay. The CAP identifies the initiatives required to be taken by various …
In a unique effort, three years after an earthquake devastated Kutch a group of women from villages across the affected region don the role of amateur film-makers in order to highlight the valiant efforts of the people to rise above the tragedy. Who better to tell a story than the …
What are the main findings of the psychosocial assessment of the Marathwada earthquake survivors? One out of every three persons suffers from psychological distress. 65 per cent have been impaired by functional limitations. Such disability reduces a victim's functionality by one-third. So each such patient has lost 12,000 working days …
progress report: On January 6, the Supreme Court asked the Union government to file a status report by April 23 on the progress made in the project to interlink rivers. The task force on interlinking had filed a report saying that it had already identified 30 major links in the …
A powerful earthquake in the early hours of December 26 leaves in its trail death and destruction of unimaginable proportions in the Iranian heritage city of Bam. It has been the most devastating earthquake in the history of Iran. Two days after the killer quake struck the ancient city of …
on august 30, while inaugurating a hydropower project at Omkareswar in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister (pm) Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared that every village in the country would be electrified by 2007 and every house illuminated by 2012. The announcement
with the southeastern parts of Bangladesh experiencing a number of mild-to-moderate tremors since July 27, it is feared that a major earthquake is set to rock the region in the near future. Significantly, Bangladesh
It is more than two years since the terrible earthquake struck Gujarat. In this period the catastrophe-struck areas have witnessed rehabilitation work on an enormous scale. The Disaster Mitigation Institute, an Ahmedabad-based community action hub, evaluated the relief measures undertaken by the government and humanitarian agencies in the aftermath of …
model town: Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, is likely to be the northeast region's first planned township. The move to prepare the city's master plan was actually triggered by fears about an impending earthquake and a rapidly expanding hill town that is already bursting at its seams. In stark contrast …
Cloning constraint: The cloning of humans and other primates may not be possible with current techniques, indicates an experiment. Normally, during the natural division of healthy cells, chromosomes duplicate and line up on a structure in the cell known as the
earthquakes shake water out of wet soil, new research suggests. Since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, the observation that streams carry more water following a quake has baffled geologists. Some experts propose that earthquakes compress the water-bearing rocks that naturally feed streams, wringing more water from them. Others maintain …
The Bhuj earthquake was something of a watershed in Indian disaster preparedness. Several state governments, most so in the Northeast, and various central ministries were shocked into a comprehension of the dangers. However, national capital New Delhi, which is under perpetual latent seismic threat, is blissfully unattended. Neither the local …
two years ago, the earth in Gujarat shook and buildings crumbled. Since then, as many as 1108 tremors of 3 and above on the Richter scale have been recorded in the same region. Humans do not feel a tremor of 3 and below; only seismographs can record them. But the …
Take some sand in a glass container; fill it with water. Shake the container. The water and sand become a single fluid mass. Now imagine a highly populated town standing on this material. You can't even imagine what will happen when an earthquake strikes . Once you know this, how …
