The millennium city, Gurgaon on Monday witnessed the NCR's first installation of an onsite Early Earthquake Warning System at the premises of Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) in Sector 18, Gurgaon.
Haryana's Finance Minister Abhimanyu Singh inaugurated the early earthquake warning system that can raise an alarm 30 seconds in advance of actual tremors.
On the occasion, Capt. Abhimanyu saw a live demonstration of the technology. He said Haryana has taken a lead over other states in testing and adopting the technology that will help it mitigate the effects of disasters.
Secty Electronics has developed the early earthquake warning and security system in collaboration with GFZ-Postdam (German Research Centre for Geosciences at Potsdam).
The technology has been installed on the foundation pillars of the building. It is capable of detecting the intensity of an earthquake and differentiating between primary waves and secondary waves.
It issues alerts as soon as primary waves strike an area so that people get some time before secondary waves hit the area. The system has eight threshold values which give signals and are programmed to raise public alarm and shut off gas, water and power supply in the event of a severe earthquake.
The system also has the capability of calculating the intensity of an earthquake. This system of warning of an earthquake is functional in 26 countries.
It gets activated automatically at the intensity of five on the Richter scale, before destructive secondary waves hit an area and can issue a warning 30 seconds ahead of an earthquake. Notably, Haryana falls in seismic zones IV, III and II and is vulnerable to earthquakes.
The Minister Capt Abhimanyu said that as most of the area in the state falls under seismic zone 4, District Disaster Management Plan has been formulated for all 21 districts to minimise the losses.
Apart from this, a feasibility study of entire state would be conducted by HIPA for which the State Government has made a provision of Rs 15 crore. Under this study, all emergency services like police assistance, ambulance and disaster management would have a single helpline number.
Meanwhile, Capt Abhimanyu, who is also Haryana’s Revenue and Disaster Management Minister said that following the prediction of heavy monsoon by the Meteorological Department, the State Government is fully alert and has been continuously monitoring the level of water in rivers and flood like situation.
He said that the rainfall is being monitored every hour and its information is being provided to the concerned officers of Meteorological, Irrigation and Disaster Management Departments of a WhatsApp group created for the purpose.
Capt. Abhimanyu added that in case of heavy rainfall in neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, its impact in Haryana would also be assessed to prevent loss to life and property.