Chandigarh: Chandigarh is set to get an earthquake warning system, which will be installed at the New Haryana Secretariat in Sector 17. It will sound an alert around 30 seconds before an earthquake.
German company Secty Electronics Gmbh, in collaboration with German Geo Research Centre (GFZ) has developed this system. An alert will be sounded when the sensors catch the vibrations of the P-wave or primary wave in the zone where an earthquake will take place. The P-waves are the first waves of an earthquake to arrive on a seismograph. These are followed by surface waves. The system was assembled on the basis of research conducted by GFZ on earthquakes in the last 100 years. Chandigarh is in seismic zone IV, making it prone to earthquakes.
The sensors of the device are also capable of sensing the magnitude of the earthquake, which if greater than level 6 on the reading scale, will sound an alarm indicating that the earthquake will be destructive. The system comes with speakers, which increases the range of the alarm. The device helps in blocking and shutting down of gas pipelines, nuclear supplies, water supplies, etc. In case of leakage in a pipeline, supply to the pipeline is stopped and can only be resumed through a code. The cost of the device is between Rs 1200,000 and 1400,000.
