Chennai: India’s first early earthquake warning and security system was successfully tested at CSIR-Structural Engineering Research Centre (SERC), Taramani, here on Thursday. A team headed by N. Gopalakrishnan from the earthquake engineering department in CSIR-SERC, tested the device.
“It is the first time such device is being tested in any Indian laboratory. The device can alert in advance before the destructive secondary waves hit the location,” says Bijender Goel, Managing Director, Terra Techcom Private Limited, New Delhi.
“If the epicentre is within the 40 km radius then the warning time would be between 8 to 12 seconds. As the distance from the epicentre of the earthquake gets longer, people will have more time up to 60 seconds to react. These seconds are very crucial as it would help save many lives,” he said.
The early earthquake and warning system was a joint venture project of Terra Techcom Pvt Ltd, New Delhi and Secty electronics GmbH, Germany. The test was conducted at the request of Haryana government and it is to be installed in the mini secretariat at Chandigarh on March 14 as a pilot project.
“After the earthquake, there will be primary and secondary waves. The primary waves are approximately twice as fast as those of the secondary waves but are imperceptible to people. The warning system will detect this wave and give an alert of an earthquake before the destructive secondary waves,” he said.
