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Disaster in waiting? Gurgaon highly prone to earthquakes, say experts

Delhi region has seven active and non-active fault-lines, and unfortunately almost all of them pass either beneath or just adjacent to Gurgaon.

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Gurgaon falls in seismic zone IV.
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Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do – whosoever said these words rightly defended a natural course of action. Nepal Earthquake of magnitude 7.8 has left more than 3500 dead already and thousands injured. One shake and buildings collapsed like a pack of cards.

India also had few earthquakes in the past which saw our cities face significant loss of lives and livelihoods. The Bhuj earthquake in 2001 is one such example where the city of Ahmedabad witnessed massive damage in spite of the fact that the earthquake epicentre was almost 300 kilometeres away. Thousands died and property worth 35 thousand crore got destroyed. And then the earthquake of Pakistan that was felt in northern India also, with damage to lives and property in J&K in 2005.

Our willful amnesia prevents us from taking adequate precautions while building our cities. One of the main cities in India which is still in its evolving phase is Gurgaon, Haryana. Gurgaon, the emerging urban centre in NCR (National Capital Region) is one such example of thoughtless mushrooming of concrete structures. Gurgaon falls in seismic zone IV, one of the region highly prone to earthquakes. (The highest risk zone is V). One Bhuj like tremor can turn this urban aspiration into a supermarket of death and destruction.

Speaking with iamin, Abhay Srivastava, disaster management expert at Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) said, “Delhi region has seven active and non-active fault-lines, and unfortunately almost all of them pass either beneath or just adjacent to Gurgaon. It means that even a small tectonic shift in any of these fault-lines is fatal for Gurgaon. The city doesn’t stand any chance of survival if the quality of building getting constructed today is taken into consideration.”

It is not that Gurgaon hasn’t seen any earthquake before. In 1960, an earthquake had hit Gurgaon in which two people were dead while several got injured. “At that time, Gurgaon was a village with half a dozen pucca houses and rest was clay shanties. But today’s Gurgaon is a full-fledged city growing rapidly. Any earthquake now would see people dying in lakhs,” added Srivastava.

Abhay has prepared a couple of contingency plans for Gurgaon in case any major earthquake hits the city but he too is very less optimistic for any effective results from these plans. “Even a flawless execution of any contingency plan too cannot save Gurgaon because the devastation would be too big. Any tremor of intensity more than six wouldn’t only destroy the high-rises but all essential infrastructures such as bridges, communication network, hospitals and many others,” warned Srivastava.

Gurgaon doesn’t give heed to warnings hence the mushrooming of highrises and other concrete structures is going on uninterrupted. At present, Gurgaon has around 1,100 high-rise buildings and more and more are coming up in new sectors under construction as per the master plan 2031. Are these buildings good enough? Yes! atleast on paper. “Brochure of every builder says that his building is earthquake proof or resistant, but in reality, I don’t think that any of them are. No doubt, as far as design and architecture is concerned, the builders hire good people but the implementation of those designs and plans is carried out by an illiterate contractor and his masons who don’t know even the basics of how to construct an earthquake resistant building,” said Anshu Sharma, another disaster management expert working for an NGO-SEEDS in South Delhi.

The state government too knows that Gurgaon falls in zone IV and it would come crumbling down with slight tremor, but it too doesn’t think even once before giving license for gated townships, and malls.

Half of Gurgaon better known as the old city doesn’t have high-rises yet it’s equally prone to the threat of devastation. Almost 90 per cent of old Gurgaon and the villages have un-engineered structures made-up of burnt bricks. Even a slight tremor would leave trails of unprecedented damage. Hubs such as Cyber City and Udyog Vihar are comparatively better because majority of the building are made of steel frames. It’s not that people don’t know about this impending threat but it seems that they simply don’t care.

“We know that Gurgaon falls in zone four but there has been no earthquake in last four decades, so the possibility isn’t that great. Builders claim that their buildings are earthquake resistant but only time will tell how good their buildings are,” said Satish Sinha, a sector-56 resident.

For the original version of the report, click here

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