Agartala, Nov 2 : Geologists today warned the Tripura Government that two hill-bound districts of North Tripura and Dhalai of the state have become more vulnerable as the fault line drawn after disastrous quake in Sikkim, intersects the entire area. Talking to media here, state Revenue Minister Badal Choudhury said the latest National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) communiqu asked all the northeastern states to enhance the disaster management infrastructure especially the preparedness to tackle high magnitude earthquake.
Tripura has high probability of earthquake because sedimentary rock underneath and most area is under 1st order topography of marine origin besides, poor houses including government infrastructures.
Moreover, According to Vulnerability Atlas of India, 1997, Tripura comes under the very high earthquake damage risk-zone (category V, magnitude 7.0 to 7.5) and most of the existing houses were not able to stand high magnitude tremor. Mr Choudhury however, stated that the state government had identified as many as 2000 building mostly government houses including existing Raj Bhawan as vulnerable to earthquake, which required retrofitting but the state government could not manage the adequate fund to execute the plan.
He also demanded provision of additional funds for building of earthquake resistant public houses and constructions under the special housing schemes like Indira Awas Yajuna (IAY) and Sarva Sikhya Abhiyan (SSA) and the quality disaster management training infrastructure in the state.
Mr Choudhury blamed the Centre for awarding only Rs one crore in a year by the 13th finace commission for disaster management activities in Tripura despite identifying the state as one of the most earth quake prone areas and all other states were awarded five crore every year.
To sensitise the key players of disaster management in the state for strengthening the disaster management responsibilities and further effective implementation of required action, the state has organised a two-day workshop from today in Agartala, Mr Choudhury said, adding as part of the workshop, an exhibition on critical equipment and skills was organised to understand the use of the equipment for supplementing the existing resources for saving loss.
Earlier, Tripura Governor Dr Dnyandeo Yashwantrao Patil asked the state government to shift his residence from the 95-year-old Raj Bhawan building in Agartala to a safer place after reviewing the earthquake warning from the scientists.
But the state government assured him that necessary protection had already been given to the building and till the completion of new Raj Bhawan, there was no other suitable accommodation for the governor.
Keeping the experts opinion and the region s topographical status, the Ministry of Urban Development had asked the state government to follow the recommendations in the following areas: policy, strategy, action plan, technical guidance for new buildings and retrofitting existing buildings.
Quoting National Seismic Advisor A S Arya s warning, officals said between 1792 and 2003, about 42 moderate to high- magnitude earthquakes occurred along the state boundary and within a 100 km area of the state. So far as wind hazards go, the wind speed in the state is cyclonic.
The government had also begun to train villagers and civil officials in dealing with both man-made and natural disasters. The approach and management strategies had been incorporated into the school curriculum.
Disaster management was included in environment studies at school level and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping of the state s residential status had alerady been done besides formulating separate regulation for buildings in urban areas.
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