Understanding earthquake to avoid unnecessary panic
.. if we get more than lakh 3 rector scale earthquake after the main earthquake than its possible that those energy might have already been released, so media also need to play vital role during this peak time as misinterpretation can affect the emotion of people tremendously and that can cause many problems afterward .....
".... GON would understand its impact and also act more effectively ..."
The recent earthquake in Jajarkot is the talk of the town and massive destruction in the area have moved the people and dragged many people toward extreme fear about the future earthquake. After the gorkha earthquake, our approach toward for safe construction and retrofitting of existing structure in whole Nepal was lapsing and this situation was a very obvious one. Still, many structures in Nepal in Terai region and in hilly and Himalayan regions are more prone and harsher situation can bang if we do not take proper action well in advance. Gorkha earthquake had provided enough time frame for us to act for such possible ambiguity but lack of proper management from governmental level we were unable to implement the ideas then and I think we still have time to implement the safe construction practice and also safe retrofitting techniques to the pre-existing houses. Misinterpretation of the existing energy releasing process in Jajarkot areas is also spreading more fear among people. I am getting lots of calls nowadays posing queries about when the big earthquake is coming, what rector scale earthquake is hitting us, experts are saying there is big energy yet to be released so is massive earthquake coming up. All these queries are making me concerned so I am trying to explain what actually is earthquake and can we predict it well in advance. Earthquake is simply the movement of earth surface due to release of stress energy from the earth. All countries are in certain tectonic plates and those tectonic plate has certain movement; our Nepal is under Indian and Eurasian tectonic plate and those plate are under small movement and due to those movement, there would be stress developed and many a times that stress get released. Once, the stress is released, again due to movement the stress again starts to accumulate and earthquake can occur after certain time. This is the process to identify where and when we might get earthquake so we analyzed the data of reoccurrence. There is no any such instrument discovered till date which can predict the time of earthquake, it is to be understood that once earthquake occurs, its energy is being released. Its actually the adjusting and arrangement of rocks in the earth surface and due to that enormous energy is being released. Normally, energy of one magnitude to another magnitude earthquake is more than 35 times. If we are expecting the earthquake of 8 in that time era and got the earthquake of 6 magnitude than its understood that there are much more stress to be released but if we get thousand and thousand of small earthquake with it than those stress might have been reduced in great amount and without any research if we make a conclusion that much more energy is yet to be released than that conclusion is baseless. Proper research and analysis can help us drag to this conclusion, for instance if we get more than lakh 3 rector scale earthquake after the main earthquake than its possible that those energy might have already been released, so media also need to play vital role during this peak time as misinterpretation can affect the emotion of people tremendously and that can cause many problems afterward. So, I pledge to the public that Nepal is prone to earthquake and we can encounter earthquake any time but if someone claim about future earthquake than its better to understand that we need to overlook them or need to alert them, there are no any instrument discovered till date on the earth which can predict earthquake. Its also because manmade device would not work after certain km from earth surface and those tectonic plate movement is much more km away from earth surface and even wave analysis can’t direct us for any solid conclusion. Its better to understand that practicing the safe construction and retrofitting the existing structure can be the best way to deal with such catastrophic situation.
After Gorkha earthquake we had enough time to act for spreading awareness about earthquake, adopt good practice of construction and also retrofit the existing structure. Acting only during catastrophic situation is not the solution. I hope GON would understand its impact and also act more effectively for practicing safe construction and initiate retrofitting of structure in hilly, Himalayan and terai region to reduce any ambiguity in the future. Every individual also needs to act responsibly at this critical time and make yourself prepared if such situation would occur. Adopting safe construction and latest trend in engineering for constructing new houses, adopting retrofitting techniques for existing structures, identifying the safe place within the house, maintaining open space in the area and in the community, fixing and placing the falling items in the wall, clearing the materials from the main way which would be used during evacuation process, placing some thing in head and helping old and children for the way out to the safe place during earthquake is the best ways to deal with it.