IIT Roorkee exhibits India’s first regional earthquake early warning system

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee displayed the Uttarakhand state earthquake early warning system (UEEWS) at the third national platform for disaster risk reduction (NPDRR) exhibition held in Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi, a statement from the institution said.

The exhibition was held on March 10 and 11, 2023. The university’s statements informed that UEEWS is India’s first regional earthquake early warning system developed by professor at department of earth sciences at the institute, Kamal and his team. Kamal and his team exhibited the UEEWS in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.

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All the political leaders including PM Modi and Minister Shah, interacted with the team personally and gained insights on the system’s benefits and capabilities. UEEWS, as per the official statement, comprises as many as 170 seismic sensors installed in Uttarakhand, while the central server located in the EEWS lab at IIT Roorkee continuously monitors the incoming data stream. Post this, it can detect upcoming earthquake events and in case of moderate to high-magnitude earthquakes, it will issue a warning to the general public.

To disseminate warnings, two modes are being used at present. First one is the mobile application titled BhuDEV and the other are the siren units, it added. IIT Roorkee director, Professor KK Pant said, ‘The UEEWS is an accomplishment for the state where earthquakes are a common occurrence. The early warning of ground shaking during an earthquake will rapidly detect the initiation of an earthquake, estimate the level of

ground shaking to be expected, and issue a warning before significant ground shaking starts, saving multiple lives’.

Professor Kamal said that two moderate earthquakes, which occurred in November 2022 and January 2023 took place about 100 kilometres away from the instrumented area in the Nepal region, before which, successful warnings were issued to the public.