EARTHQUAKE MENACE

Taranaki Daily News, 27 March 1937, Page 5

EARTHQUAKE MENACE

RESEARCH WORK IN 1NDIA. BETTER BUILDINGS NEEDED. Means to forestall or ameliorate the wors. effects of earthquakes in India were explained by Mr. W. D. West, of the Geological Survey of India, to the geology section of the Indian Science Congress at Hyderabad, Deccan, this month. The occurrence of earthquakes in ■ India, said Mr. West, was a legacy of the great earth movements that convulsed the northern flanks of India during Tertiary and Quaternary times, and a belt of mountains, including the Alps and Himalayas, was thrown up on the site of an extensive sea. India was at present passing through a period of marked earthquake activity. Earthquakes were almost entirely confined to the north of a line joining Bombay to Delhi and Delhi to Calcutta. It was unfortunate that it included the most populated tracts of India. Continuing, Mr. West said: "There would appear to be two lines of approach; (1) to investigate the possibilities of predicting the incidence of earthquakes, both with regard to place and time; (2) to recognise the inevitability of earthquakes within the danger zone, and to adopt measures of protection against

them in accordance with princlples that are now well known. "Seismological research that is being done more or less independently by the Geological Survey of India, the Meteorological Department and the Survey of India, should be co-ordinatcd and expanded by developing a special Seismological branch of one of the existing services. To minimise the destructive effects of earthquakes the Defence Department of the Government of India is considering the best method of making the buildings in cantonments within the earthquake zone more resistant. "There remains for consideration the far greater problem of improving the standard of other buildings, both Gov-ernment-owned and private, throughout the earthquake belt. If all new construction and town planning in the more important cities is controlled by building codes, drawn up in accordance with local needs, and enforced by provincial Governments and local boards, a start will have been made, which will itself have a cumulative effect."