Lok Sabha Question No. 4488 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2017-03-29
Subject: Early Warning for Tsunami and Earthquake
Ministry: EARTH SCIENCES
Asked by: SUKHBIR SINGH JAUNPURIA, SUNIL KUMAR MONDAL

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 4488

## TO BE ANSWERED ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH29, 2017

## EARLY WARNING FOR TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE

## 4488. SHRI SUKHBIR SINGH JAUNAPURIA:

## SHRI SUNIL KUMAR MONDAL:

Will the Minister of EARTH SCIENCES be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has achieved any success in the field of early warning system for Tsunami and earthquake;
- (b)
- if so, the details thereof;
- (c) the  funds  allocated/spent  on  carrying  out  research  thereon  during the last three years and the current year;
- (d) whether  the  Government  proposes  to  acquire  such  other  system available in the global market; and
- (e)
- if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND

## MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES (SHRI Y. S. CHOWDARY)

- (a-b)   Yes  Madam.  The  Indian  Tsunami  Early  Warning  Centre  (ITEWC), which is based at & operated by Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad has all necessary infrastructure and capabilities to give tsunami advisories to India as well  as  to  Indian  Ocean  countries.  ITEWC  has  been  designated  as one of the Regional Tsunami Service Providers for the entire Indian Ocean Region by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO)  on  12  October  2011.  Since  then,  ITEWC  is providing tsunami warnings and related services to all countries in the Indian Ocean Rim (24 Countries) beyond fully serving the India's coastline / Islands. The centre is capable of detecting tsunami-genic earthquakes occurring in the Indian Ocean as well as in the Global Oceans within 10 minutes of their occurrence and disseminates the advisories  to  the  concerned  authorities  within  20  minutes  through email,  fax,  SMS,  Global  Telecommunication  System  (GTS)  and website.

The  ITEWC  consists  of  national  and  international  observational network of seismic stations, sea level gauge stations and tsunami buoys around the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Data from approximately 400 seismometers is being received in real-time and processed automatically to detect an earthquake of magnitude 4.0 and  above  anywhere  on  the  globe.  As  soon  as  the  earthquake  is detected,  warning  centre  transmits  the  first  bulletin  based  on seismic data describing the location of earthquake, its magnitude, depth  and  other  characters  of  the  event.  After  issuing  the  first bulletin, seismic data are further analysed to improve the accuracy of  earthquake  parameters  (magnitude,  depth  and  location).  The processing of seismic data is optimized to detect and characterize large earthquakes within earliest possible time.

A pilot project on Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) system is under implementation for northern India (Uttarakhand) by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee which is funded by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES). Such type of system gives a time lead for a few seconds  to  little  more  than  a  minutefor  issue  of  warning  on occurrence  of an earthquake, so that some  remedial  actions regarding  vacating  building,  shutting  down  critical  operations  etc may be taken up.Having said that, it is appropriate to mention that so far earthquake prediction is not developed anywhere in the world with  precise  degree  of  accuracy  with  respect  to  time,  space  and magnitude.

- (c) The  funds  allocated/spent  by  Tsunami  Early  Warning  Systemon carrying  our  research  thereon  during  the  last  three  years  and  the current year are as under;

| 2013-14   | 2013-14      | 2014-15   | 2014-15      | 2015-16   | 2015-16      | 2016-17 upto 23.3.2017   | 2016-17 upto 23.3.2017   |
|-----------|--------------|-----------|--------------|-----------|--------------|--------------------------|--------------------------|
| Budget    | Expend iture | Budge t   | Expend iture | Budg et   | Expen diture | Budget                   | Expen diture             |
| 30.14     | 14.35        | 15.29     | 13.97        | 15.29     | 21.53        | 15.29                    | 11.96                    |

Under  EEW,  against  the  total  allocated  funds  of  Rs.  3.75  Cr,  an amount of Rs. 2.41 Cr has been released to IIT Roorkee from 24 th June 2013 till date.

(d-e)   There is no proposal to acquire other systems available in the global market,  but  equipments  are  being  acquired  for  the  refinement  of Tsunami warning criteria and that is an ongoing process. The new research techniques such as Water level inversion, real-time inundation  modeling,  real-time  estimation  of  focal  mechanism  of earthquake to show the style of faulting and incorporation of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) data into the warning chain are the  few  key  issues  that  ITEWC  has  taken  up  on  priority.  All  these will  enable  more  informed  decisions  on  evacuation,  as  well  as  to eliminate the potentially dangerous false evacuations.

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