And it is poised to do that again by intercepting all those aspects of life that make it worth living. Take, for instance, the killer earthquake that swept across Gujarat, and sent shudders down the spine of the entire country. Though our hearts, as do yours, go out to the families of the thousands killed or missing there, we pause and ponder over whether the systematic use of available technology would have helped counter nature's demons. Hence this feature. How Technology has changed the nature of quake prediction and mitigation Earthquakes occur every day around the world.
Most global earthquakes concentrate at the plate boundaries.
However, there is no reliable method of accurately predicting the time, place, and magnitude of an earthquake. While earth scientists began recording earthquakes as early as about 1880, it was not until the 1940's that instruments were installed in buildings to measure their response to earthquakes. The first abundant data on the response of structures came from the devastating 1971 San Fernando, California earthquake, which yielded several dozen records. Most major earthquakes are heralded by the occurrence of foreshocks, which can be detected by dense local monitoring networks. Other instruments can measure changes in the levels of radon gas, electrical and magnetic properties, velocity changes of seismic waves, and changes in topography.