[Assam] Pressing the panic button is justified. But what disaster preparation plans in place? District authorities plan to dig expected rubbles with bare hands with their X-Ray vision?

[Bartta Bistar]

*Major quake predicted in Assam*

http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/sep/01assam.htm























September 01, 2006 13:37 IST

A sudden drop in atmospheric temperature and small earthquakes convinced
seismologists to alert Assam government for a major earthquake in the near
future.

Assam government, after getting an urgent alert communication from world
famous seismologist Dr Arun Bapat, has not taken any chances and formally
asked all district magistrates to be on alert for any eventuality.

The government has also approached the Geological Survey of India, said
senior officials of the revenue department.

The chain of events started with a communique from Dr Bapat, who is an
expert in the matter. He informed that there was a sudden change of
atmospheric temperature in an area in north Lakhimpur district.

The communique arrived a fortnight back to the Assam government saying in
the area the temperature was below the normal temperature by 3-4 degrees and
the occurrence was sudden.

The Lakhimpur area itself is in a highly seismic active zone and Dr Bapat
cited that a similar abrupt fall in atmospheric temperature was noticed in
Pakistan's Rawalpindi in 2005 before a major earthquake rocked the city and
its suburbs.

This was enough for the state government to press the panic button.

Meanwhile, Geological Survey of India wrote back that such development of
temperature variation might be there, but there was need for further
observation before jumping to any conclusion.

Two smaller intensity earthquakes in the past 24 hours in the north-eastern
region have further complicated the picture as there has been growing panic
in the state. Assam has witnessed two major earthquakes.

One was in 1897 and another in 1950 and both were above the intensity of 8
on the Ritcher Scale.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /pipermail/assam_assamnet.org/attachments/20060901/9bed20bf/attachment.htm