SILCHAR, Oct 12 - In India, more than 50 per cent of the land area falls under active seismic zones. Scientific knowledge has not progressed to reliably predict earthquakes in issuing the warning to save lives.
In a bid to sensitise the engineers and builders engaged in constructing multistoried buildings in Barak Valley, the Department of Civil Engineering at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Silchar in association with the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM) New Delhi under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India recently organised a three day training programme on Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) of built-up facilities.
As many as 32 officials from different Government engineering departments from Silchar, including Public Works Department (PWD), Water Resources Department (WR), Public Health Engineering (PHE), Pollution Control Board, Department of Irrigation, Department of Post, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, Town and Country Planning Silchar Municipal Board took part in the three-day programme. Apart from government engineers, research scholars having specialisation in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (SDEE) and Structural Engineering (SE) together with the faculty members of NIT Silchar also attended the sessions.
Expressing concern on the frequent earthquakes hitting this part of the country, experts from the NIDM, Prof Chandan Ghosh and Prof Amir Ali Khan said that most of the buildings here have been constructed without following the proper guidelines. �After the designing part, when the building plan is passed, the intervention of the engineers in an engineering manner is barely minimal. Post the construction works, the defects which are detected in the buildings are actually not mentioned in the design. Therefore, the engineers and construction workers must realise that the Building Bylaws and National Building Codes which they are aware about must be implemented while executing the construction work,� Prof Ghosh maintained. While, Prof Khan stressed upon the fact that since this region falls in the Seismic Zone V, efforts must be made to adhere to the guidelines of the building laws and capacity building as well. In his words, proper examination of the materials used in the construction work must be done to prevent major disasters.
Cachar Deputy Commissioner, S Vishwanathan who is also the chairman of the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) who attended the training programme as the chief guest said �since we are in the Seismic Zone, there is much to do to predict or stop earthquake. But by following proper norms in building constructions, the extent of the damage could be minimised.�
Prof AK Sinha, the director in-charge of the institute spoke on the aspects of Rapid Visual Screening for the betterment and advancement of society relevance to the preparedness to resist disasters. Dr Nitesh A, assistant professor at the Department of Civil Engineering expressed thanks to the participants and members of the NIDM for making the event successful.
