IIT Roorkee works towards improving earthquake warning time to 40 seconds or more

INTERNATIONAL DESK: Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Roorkee, are working on improving the warning time to the public in case of an earthquake to 40 seconds or more.

Currently, the institute’s Department of Earthquake Engineering sends out a warning just a few seconds before an earthquake is about to strike.

Professor M.L. Sharma, head of the institute’s early earthquake detection system, has incubated a start-up — Seismic Hazard and Risk Investigations — which is working on advancement of the warning system.

Explaining how the system works, he said: “We have installed a sensor in a highly seismic zone, between Uttarkashi and Dharchula (in Uttarakhand). Whenever it catches a seismic wave, signals are sent to the monitoring system installed in our earthquake lab.”

Sharma added: “Once it catches the signal and identifies the magnitude of the quake, it sends out a warning. If the quake is of high magnitude, the warning goes out to the public, else it goes to the researchers internally for monitoring purposes.”

A warning is sent out to the public through their free app — Early Earthquake Warning — only if the earthquake is stronger than a magnitude of five.

Sharma, however, emphasised that it was “not enough that we send out a warning to people before a quake. We need to ensure that more and more buildings are made up of earthquake-proof material”.

IIT Roorkee’s Department of Earthquake Engineering is the only one of its kind in an educational institution which conducts research on early quake detection and quake-proof building material.(THE PRINT)