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Met denies delay in quake information

Onkar Singh in New Delhi

Department of Science and Technology secretary Dr V S Ramamurthy has denied that there was any delay on the part of the Indian Meteorological Department to inform people about the earthquake that hit Gujarat on the morning of January 26.

"There was no delay. Within seven minutes of the earthquake, we located its epicentre near Bhuj and had known that it was a massive shock of the magnitude of 6.9 on the Richter Scale. The people who needed to know first were informed first and within 40 minutes the media was also informed. As we have to take readings from various observatories, time was taken to make some calculations and arrive at a conclusion,'' he explained.

''Once we announced that the epicentre was Bhuj, there was no way we could have taken it back, if wrong. So the calculation had to be accurate and precise," Ramamurthy told newsmen on Friday.

Dr Rajen Kelkar, director general of the IMD, who has kept a low profile and allowed his deputy Dr S K Srivastav to do the talking, said that there was no way to predict earthquakes. "Three things are need for prediction: where, when and what intensity. And it is impossible to make these calculations before an earthquake strikes," he said.

Dr Harsh Gupta of the Indian Geological Research Institute maintained that the earthquake was of the intensity of 7.9 on the surface wave magnitude and this was an accurate way of calculating the magnitude of an earthquake.

This was disputed by Srivastav, who asked newsmen if they had ever heard of any terminology being used to describe the intensity of an earthquake other than the Richter Scale.

"The world over, earthquakes are measured on the Richter Scale. And we have taken the correct reading. Measurements that Gupta is talking about are a new methodology. The Richter Scale is a 100-year-old system of measuring earthquakes," he argued.

Dr S N Bhattacharya, deputy director general of the IMD, who led a team of experts to Gujarat for preparing a report on the intensity and magnitude of the earthquake and the devastation that has been unleashed by it, said that a preliminary report prepared by him was not an apology of a report, as some critics contended. "In our initial report, we have said whatever needs to be said. We will take at least a couple of months to prepare the main report, which will be made public," Bhattacharya told rediff.com.

He refused to speculate on the number of deaths but admitted that it could be higher than initial estimates.

On an earthquake hitting the capital and the damage it would do, Bhattacharya said that areas that would be hit the worst would be trans-Yamuna and beyond Peeragarhi in north Delhi, besides Sonipat, Panipat and Karnal in Haryana.

He explained that seismic activity after the main earthquake was not abnormal and it would take a couple of months before all activity died down.

Srivastav said that there was a possibility of an earthquake of the intensity of 7 or more on the Richter Scale hitting the capital, but nobody could tell when it would hit.

On the prediction by a Jawaharlal Nehru University scientist, that a massive earthquake would hit Delhi this April, Ramamurthy said that he had not been asked to study and predict earthquakes. "We cannot pull up someone for predicting something, but my advice is to be careful while listening to such forecasts. There is no scientific evidence to prove that earthquakes can be predicted," he said.

He denied a report by a private television channel that equipment meant for installation in observatories near Latur and Uttarkashi were still lying in packed boxes. "The IMD sends hundreds of boxes to observatories. We do not know what is lying in those boxes," he said.

The Complete Coverage | List of earthquake sites

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