New system to monitor seismic activity in northeast

AGARTALA - An ambitious project to modernise the seismic monitoring system in India’s northeast — said to be the sixth most quake-prone belt in the world — has been taken up by the union ministry of earth sciences (MoES), officials said here Friday.

“A VSAT-based real time seismic monitoring network (RTSMN) over the northeast consisting of two central receiving stations (CRS) — one in Shillong and the other in New Delhi — is under commissioning,” meteorological department director Dilip Saha told IANS.

He said the RTSMN would be a satellite based system and it would have 21 stations across eight northeastern states. Approximately Rs.25 lakh would be spent on each station for commissioning the equipment and developing necessary infrastructure.

The RTSMN stations are Guwahati, Tezpur, Dibrugarh, Dhubri, Silchar, Jorhat and Lekhapani in Assam, Yupia, Tawang, Pashighat and Zero in Arunachal Pradesh, Tura and Shillong in Meghalaya, Mokokchung and Kohima in Nagaland, Agartala and Belonia in Tripura, Aizawl and Saiha in Mizoram, Imphal in Manipur and Tadong in Sikkim.

“After commissioning of the RTSMN, more accurate seismic activities relating to earthquake would be known,” Saha stated.

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) earlier notified that the mountainous northeast comprising eight states could experience a devastating earthquake as the region is considered by seismologists to be the sixth worst quake-prone belt in the world.

Assam experienced a massive tremor measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale Aug 15, 1950, that claimed some 1,500 lives. The worst quake, measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, was felt in the region in 1897. It killed 1,600 people.