labels: construction, economy - general, indian institutes of technology
Urban India prone to earthquake risks: IIT experts news
15 February 2007
Washington: As India witnesses a major boom in costruction caused by rapid urbanisation, two scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Powai, have highlighted the need to update urgently design standards for constructing adequate and safe industrial facilities, dams, and community buildings in earthquake-prone peninsular India.

They say the seismic hazard associated with some major urban areas, such as Mumbai, is higher than the standard design specification now used to build earthquake-resistant structures there, they say in a paper published in the February issue of the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (BSSA).

In other words, the level of seismic safety of structures designed, based on current standards is lower than what is required to survive earthquakes.

The two co-authors are Ravi Sinha, Ph.D., professor of civil engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Mumbai, and doctoral research scholar Kishor Jaiswal at IIT.

As earthquakes in stable continental regions lack sufficient understanding to prepare local populations for future seismic activity, Sinha and Jaiswal focused their research on peninsular India, which is an old and stable continental plate and home to more than 400 million people.

As stable continental regions are areas away from the boundaries between tectonic plates but are still threatened by infrequent earthquakes that can create strong tremors. Because the large earthquakes are infrequent, they are difficult to study.

To estimate the devastating consequences of potential earthquakes, scientists continually re-evaluate hazard assessments for an area. Based on these assessments, codes for construction of structures like dams, industrial buildings, and homes indergo modification. Design codes based on outdated assessments could increase the risk of heavy damage by seismic activity.

The co-authors conducted a hazard assessment for the region that looks at a variety of information regarding seismic activity in the region, using a probabilistic framework.

The authors noted an apparent increase in seismic activity due to better seismological instrumentation to record earthquakes. The increase in seismic activity requires a closer consideration of construction standards.

Sinha and Jaiswal say their work is useful in specifying design level for upgrading and retrofitting major structures such as dams and industrial facilities to the desired level of seismic safety.


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Urban India prone to earthquake risks: IIT experts