Are we ready to face another earthquake

Abstract

Earthquake, now everyone is familiar with this word. We have clearly witnessed during the recent Sumatra, Indonesia earthquake (M 9.0) the amount of damage an earthquake can cause to the society. Had this earthquake occurred on land, it would have easily damaged few hundreds of kilometers and the damage estimates would have been unimaginable. Earthquakes are not new to our country. We have had the long history of earthquake occurrences. Some of the major earthquakes of the world occurred in our country and neighborhood areas. During past 15 years also we have witnessed 6 moderate earthquakes: Bihar-Nepal border (M6.4) in 1988, Uttarkashi, Uttaranchal (M6.6) in 1991, Latur, Maharastra (M6.3) in 1993, Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh (M6.0) in 1997, Chamoli, Uttaranchal (M6.8) in 1999 and Bhuj, Gujarat (M6.9) in 20011). These earthquakes caused around 40,000 casualties (see Table 1) and innumerable property loss. These events occurred with a time gap of 2 ~ 3 years. Are we ready to face another event? Even with the current level of understanding, it is very difficult to predict the occurrence time and exact location of next earthquake. The only way to ensure the safety is to get prepared.