Lok Sabha Question No. 2474 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2016-11-30
Subject: Early Warning for Tsunami and Earthquake
Ministry: EARTH SCIENCES
Asked by: SUKHBIR SINGH JAUNPURIA

## MINISTRY OF EARTH SCIENCES

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 2474 TO BE ANSWERED ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2016

## EARLY WARNING FOR TSUNAMI AND EARTHQUAKE

## 2474. SHRI SUKHBIR SINGH JAUNAPURIA:

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 tsunamigenic 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 on implementation  for  northern  India  (Uttarakhand)  by  Indian  Institute  Of Technology  (IIT)  Roorkee  which  is  funded  by  the  Ministry  of  Earth Sciences (MoES). The system is under testing by IIT Roorkee. Such type of system  gives  a  time  lead  for  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 is as under;

| 2013-14   | 2013-14      | 2014-15   | 2014-15      | 2015-16   | 2015-16      | 2016-17 up to 23.11.2016   | 2016-17 up to 23.11.2016   |
|-----------|--------------|-----------|--------------|-----------|--------------|----------------------------|----------------------------|
| Budge t   | Expendit ure | Budget    | Expend iture | Budget    | Expendi ture | Budget                     | Expendit ure               |
| 30.14     | 14.35        | 15.29     | 13.97        | 15.29     | 21.53        | 15.29                      | 9.45                       |

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.

- (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  recent  Japan Tsunami of March 2011 has brought out important issues that have to be addressed for improving the accuracies of tsunami warning systems. 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.

********