Earthquake Prevention in Construction Industry of India

Earthquakes are among the most devastating of nature’s curses, more scary than anything else because you almost never see it coming. Any country that goes through frequent quakes tries hard to find the solution. India is no exception either. Today, we will look into what is the situation about earthquake prevention in India.

Sitting right on top of one of the major fault lines in the world, the indian subcontinent suffers some of the greatest earthquakes. Those devastating seismic activities in the last century have motivated us to look into scientific solutions to earthquakes. This led to the creation of the first building codes specifically for earthquake resistant housing, in 1935, which were compounded with strengthening guides in 1941.

The Seismic Hazard

Most of the matter inside Earth is molten rock. Lava, that is. This molten sea has currents in it like the sea above, only slower, but just as sure. The hard crust of the earth floats on top of this lava ball. And the plates of the crust move with the lava flow underneath.

The problem is that this movement is not uniform across the world. Some plates move faster in one place and slower in another side. This causes friction and collision between plates. Indeed, one such monstrous collision is what gave birth to the Himalayas. Which incredibly is still going on.

And these frictions are exactly what causes the earthquakes.

As I said above, the worst thing about earthquakes is their unpredictability. We know the geological fault lines, yes, but we have woefully few data about the movement along the lines. So, we get to make next to no prediction about seismic activity, and their magnitude. 

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Published By
Rajib Dey
www.constructioncost.co
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