The October earthquake that killed more than 70 000 people has highlighted the urgent need for Pakistan to monitor seismic activity. Large areas of Pakistan fall within the Himalayan arc, a region prone to movements of the tectonic plates covering the Earth’s surface. Yet the authorities have paid little attention.
”Utterly unsatisfactory,” responds Iqbal Mohsin, vice-chancellor of the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Sciences and Technology, when asked to describe the country’s earthquake monitoring. ”We have just two seismology centres of any use in the country, which is totally inadequate.”
The study of earthquakes relies on highly sensitive instruments called seismometers that can measure vibrations caused by an earthquake.
”Pakistan should have at least 50 centres with seismometers, especially because we now know exactly how vulnerable we are,” says Mohsin. ”Due to a shortage of seismometers, there is scant data in the country on the subject.”
The October death toll, which is likely to increase as winter progresses in a region where many are now homeless and at the mercy of the freezing weather, has forced authorities to implement without delay a $3-million plan to upgrade Pakistan’s seismic network.
The plan was drawn up after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and was initially designed to warn of potential killer waves. In view of the recent quake in the north of the country, however, the plan’s implementation has been sped up.
When disaster struck in October, the country had in place just five permanent centres run by the Islamabad-based Pakistan Meteorology Department. Of these, only two — in Quetta and in Peshawar — had seismometers recording data on a regular basis. Those in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore did not.
Mohsin believes Karachi alone, with its 12-million inhabitants, needs five seismometers.
”Cities like Karachi are huge. We can easily have a situation in which one part of the city may be experiencing a quake while all others remain oblivious to it,” he explains. ”Moreover, the soil may vary greatly within a megacity, and this has a big bearing on its vulnerability.”
But upgrading and increasing the amount of equipment will not be enough to ensure that the country is prepared for future earthquakes. Very few Pakistani universities offer training in geology or geophysics, let alone research.
Majeedullah Qadri, a professor of geology of Karachi University, says Pakistan has not undertaken meaningful research in earthquakes since independence in 1947.
The Karachi-based NED (Nadirshaw Edulji Dinshaw) University of Engineering and Technology publishes a regular newsletter on seismology and geology, and Peshawar University started working in these disciplines less than a year ago. According to Qadri, the Quaid-i-Azam University is the only one in the country able to award doctorates in the field.
He claims bureaucrats are not interested in the subject.
”Before the earthquake, nobody realised the importance of research in seismology or geology,” says Qadri. ”This is why we have failed to produce a single well-known seismologist in our 58-year history. As a result, research in this area is practically non-existent.”
He points out that Pakistan’s ability to detect earthquakes will depend on young researchers.
”There is clearly a need for substantial research. But we cannot have good research until we start dealing with the issues in greater detail at the undergraduate as well as the postgraduate level.”
”It is true that our seismic network is not up to the mark,” accepts Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhary, Director General of the Pakistan Meteorology Department. ”But all this is about to change.”
Chaudhary says five seismometers have already been ordered for various cities, including Karachi. In addition, a National Seismic Centre, which will act as a safeguard against tsunamis and earthquakes, is being built at his department’s campus in Karachi. — SciDev.Net