The city panicked on Wednesday afternoon when tremors forced people out of offices and residences in Bangalore
The city panicked on Wednesday afternoon when tremors forced people out of offices and residences in Bangalore. But if seismic and geological experts are to be believed, the city you live in is safe. But it is not safe from structural collapses resulting in death and destruction caused due to tremors. As an expert from the Civil Engineering Safety Committee of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) cautions: No city declared seismically safe is exempt from the catastrophic effects of tremors if its buildings are not made earthquake-proof.
This is despite director, Geological Survey of India, Bangalore, KS Godavari, stating that: “Bangalore is a very stable and fraternised landmark, and hence not subject to many geological changes. It is unlikely that the city will be hit by any earthquakes.”
As far as seismologists are concerned, she is right. Bangalore is located on the Deccan landmass, which is geologically one of the oldest in the world. It has no faults underlying the city, and hence is considered seismically safe. Several geologists are of this opinion and Bangalore has been classified as “low-damage risk zone”, falling under Zone 2 on the seismic zoning map of India.
The latest version of seismic zoning map of India given in the earthquake-resistant design code of India assigns four levels of seismic activity for India in terms of zone factors. It is divided into four seismic zones (Zone 2, 3, 4 and 5). Zone 5 expects the highest level of seismic activity while Zone 2 is associated with the lowest level of activity.
But Bangalore being classified so, does not mean that those residing in high-rise buildings are safe if tremors are caused here due to an earthquake occurring far away from the city, as it did on Wednesday when a high-intensity undersea earthquake off the west coast of Sumatra, caused tremors here.
SA Reddi, member of civil engineering safety committee of AERB, who also served with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), recently inspected buildings in Bangalore and interacted with structural engineers to come to this conclusion: About 90% of them (structural engineers in Bangalore) have no clue about how to construct earthquake-proof structures. The only reason that no building has come down in the city due to a tremor is that there has been non high-intensity earthquake in Bangalore’s vicinity.
Probably because of this, an expert at the seismic monitoring station at Gauribidanur told DNA on Wednesday: “What Bangalore felt was only tremors due to the Indonesian earthquake. But nobody can predict whether Bangalore is safe from earthquakes or if anything will happen to Bangalore in the
future.”
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