Half of India’s landmass prone to quakes, 12 of 38 most vulnerable cities are in the region

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 30

Nearly half of India’s landmass is prone to earthquakes and 12 of the country’s 38 seismically most vulnerable cities are located in the states of northern region, including, Uttrakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.

The government on Friday informed Lok Sabha that considering the recorded history of earthquakes in the country, a total of 59 pc of the land mass of India (covering all states of India) is prone to earthquakes of different intensities.

As per the seismic zoning map of the country, the total area has been classified into four seismic zones — Zone V is seismically the most active region and zone II the least.

“Approximately, 11 per cent area of the country falls in zone V, 18 pc in zone IV, 30 pc in zone III and the remaining in zone II,” Jitendra Singh, minister of state (independent charge), Science and Technology said today.

Out of the 38 cities in zone IV and V, 12 are located in the northern region states.

Among Zone IV cities are Almora, Dehradun, Nainital, Roorkee (Uttrakhand); Ambala in Haryana; Ludhiana and Amritsar in Punjab; Chandigarh, Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Bharaich, Bulandshehar, Deoria, Ghaziabad, Gorakhpur, Pilibhit and Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, Barauni, Monghyr and Patna in Bihar.

Mandi, Srinagar, Bhuj, Darbhanga, Guwahati, Imphal, Jorhat, Kohima, Port Blair, Sadiya, and Tezpur are among the Zone V cities.

The National Centre for Seismology under the Ministry of Earth Sciences is the nodal agency for monitoring earthquakes in and around the country.

NCS maintains a National Seismological Network (NSN) consisting of 115 observatories spread across the country.

The information of earthquakes reported by NCS is being disseminated to the concerned central and state disaster authorities in least possible time to initiate the adequate mitigation measures.

“Seismic Microzonation of cities in India having population of 5 lakh and above is also considered. The purpose is to generate inputs for constructing earthquake risk resilient buildings and structures to reduce and mitigate the impacts of earthquake shaking and for minimising the damages to structures and loss of lives for safer urban planning,” said the Minister.