29 Cities are more prone to earthquakes | Fusion - WeRIndia

Many Indian cities including the Nation’s Capital are highly vulnerable to earthquakes. Most of these areas in the Himalayas, says the National Centre for Seismology (NCS).

The NCS, records earthquakes and performs studies related to microzonation of cities. Subdividing a region into smaller areas that have various potential for hazardous earthquake effects is known as seismic microzonation.

The NCS stated that twenty nine Indian cities including Delhi, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Imphal, Guwahati, Srinagar, Kohima, Puducherry, Gangtok and Shimla are under seismic zones IV and V, and are more prone to earthquakes.

The Himalayas is one of one of the most seismically active areas in the world and majority of the places are in it. Hence, they fall under either severe or very severe seismic zones.

According to the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) various places in the country are classified into zones II to V, considering their earthquake records, tectonic activities and damage caused.

Zone II is the least seismically active, whereas Zone V is the most active. Both zone IV and V fall under severe to very severe earthquake prone categories respectively.

The entire northeastern region falls under zone V. These areas are the parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarkhand, Himachal Pradesh, the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, some parts of north Bihar and the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago.

The areas under Zone IV Delhi, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, some parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and a small part of Maharashtra.

A massive earthquake hit Bhuj in 2001. In that earthquake 20,000 people were killed. This falls under the category of very severe seismic zone in addition to Ambala, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Ludhiana and Roorkee that fall under zones IV and V.

A study was also performed by the NCS on the microzonation of cities such as Delhi and Kolkata toevaluate the potential effect of earthquake in these mega cities.

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