Some Capacity Building Initiatives in India on Earthquake Risk Reduction

[indira.raj.06]

Introduction Indian earthquake problem is well known. In his book on Elementary Seismology, Charles Richter devoted an entire chapter entitled Some Great Indian Earthquakes to the large earthquakes in India. As seen in Table 1, during 1897 1950, four great earthquakes (magnitude exceeding 8.0) occurred in India. Fortunately, no earthquakes of M>8.0 have occurred in the country since 1950. Many experts argue that such an earthquake may occur anytime along the Himalayan belt. The casualty figures in Table 1 clearly underline the fact that Indian preparedness for strong earthquake shaking is rather low, and that the country is subjected to unacceptably large seismic risk. Particularly alarming is the fact that numerous multistory buildings constructed in recent years fell like a pack of cards during the Bhuj earthquake of 2001. About 220 km from the epicenter, in the city of Ahmedabad, 130 such buildings collapsed killing about 750 persons.

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