Earthquake disaster mitigation committee to be set up in NIT

The state of Assam and the whole of North East falls under the sesmic zone-V and runs the risk of major disasters, should there be major tremors.

Already the region has had forgettable history of significant earthquakes including the ones of 8.7 in Shillong back in 1897 followed by one in Assam in 1950 registering 8.6 magnitude on the richter scale.

Considering these factors and also keeping in view the mushrooming growth of flats and multistoried apartments in and across North East, National Institute of Technology Silchar and Assam State Disaster Management Authority(ASDMA) Guwahati have decided to join hands in augmenting collaborative research activities and in imparting training to engineers and officials of departments related to buildings and construction.

As a part of the memorandum of understanding, a Centre of Excellence of Earthquake Disaster Mitigation(CEEDM) will be set up in the premises of NIT Silchar.
Dr Nitesh A and Dr Arjun Sil, coordinators of a weeklong workshop on earthquake disaster mitigation under TEQIP III project informed that the MoU will be signed in a meeting between the two stakeholders on January17 and the centre will come up shortly to address the major issues.

As per the MoU, there will be regular training programme for practicing engineers including PWD, collaborative research activities for the region would be jointly taken up and data sharing policies for research would be done mutually, the coordinators informed. Prof AK Singh from IIT Guwahati, Dr S Baruah from CSIR NEIST Jorhat and other dignitaries attended the workshop.