Out of the 304 million households in the country, about 95 per cent are vulnerable to earthquakes in different degree, as per the map jointly prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC).
Aimed to enable earthquake resistant construction, the ‘easy to use’ Earthquake Hazard Zoning Maps at the Country, State and District level incorporating Tehsil level features were released on Tuesday by the Minister of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation Venkaiah Naidu.
The colour coded maps easily convey location in five different Zones of earthquake intensity which helps in planning for disaster resistant construction with necessary technical assistance. BMPTC of the Ministry of HUPA has prepared these maps at the behest of NDMA.
Naidu asked the agencies to ensure digitisation of these maps at the earliest so that they could be used by the public. He also suggested evolving mobile app based on these maps. He said that the maps would be of significant help to architects, engineers, land use planners, insurance agencies and those involved in disaster mitigation and emergency planning and management.
Sailesh Agarwal, Executive Director of BMPTC said out of 304 million houses, only 4.5 per cent are RCC framed structures which may be considered to be designed and constructed as per earthquake codes.
“The rest may not and will be vulnerable during earthquakes depending upon zones. For example, stones houses in zone V are subjected to very high risk and in zone IV, they are subjected to high risk. Similarly, brick houses are subjected to high risk in zone V and medium risk in Zone IV,” he said.
These two categories constitute more than 80 per cent housing stock of India, therefore need to be constructed with earthquake measures as per codes and depending upon zone. As most of these 80 per cent houses are constructed without the help of engineers and may be categorised as non-engineered construction which also make them vulnerable to earthquakes.
BMPTC prepared the maps using the data available with the Survey of India, Geological Survey of India, Meteorological Department and Census of India.