‘Micro quakes preventing large-scale event in India but country prepared for any eventuality’

New Delhi: Micro tremors have been helping release tectonic stress and protecting India from a devastating event, experts said and asserted that the country has seen a paradigm shift towards effective response and mitigation.

They said India is well-prepared to deal with the fallout of large-scale earthquakes as it has a dedicated, well-equipped and trained force in the form of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).

The impact of a large-scale earthquake can also be reduced if people and institutions strictly comply with the bylaws and codes to build resilient structures, they said.

“The triple junction on India’s western side near the border with Pakistan is continuously releasing stress due to the occurrence of micro-level earthquakes. There are a few earthquakes of magnitude 4 and 5 as well,” said OP Mishra, director at the Ministry of Earth Sciences’ National Centre for Seismology.

A triple junction is a point where three tectonic plates meet and interact. These are important areas of geological activity and can be sites of significant seismic and volcanic activity.

The movement of the plates can cause significant build up of stress and strain in the Earth’s crust that is eventually released in the form of earthquakes.

“Triple junctions are rigid and compact and withstand a lot of stress. If it breaks, the entire stress is released, causing a lot of damage,” Mishra explained.

There are two triple junctions in Turkiye. One of them is where the Arabian Plate, the African Plate and the Anatolian Plate meet. The breaking of this junction led to the massive earthquake that devastated Turkiye and Syria, leaving more than 25,000 dead, he said.

“Since there had been no small earthquakes in this region, a lot of stress accumulated there. Turkiye saw several powerful earthquakes within 24 hours because the couple zone area was quite big and it took time to break away,” Mishra said.

A couple zone is a region where two tectonic plates horizontally slide past each other.

“India is located in a seismically active region but we are lucky that we have a lot of micro earthquakes occurring every day. So the store-up energy is being released,” the scientist said.

He added that the impact of a large-scale earthquake can be reduced if people and institutions strictly comply with the bylaws and codes to build resilient structures.

According to experts, the resonant frequency of a building can play a critical role in determining the level of damage it experiences during an earthquake.