Editorial

A Temblor Ignored
A tremor rolled through Gangtok at around seven on Tuesday morning. It was not intense enough to cause any major damage, but rattled strong enough to wake people up from their sleep and leave those already awake, slightly out of breath. It was not long enough to trigger any panic, but the continuing lack of information [or information sharing] is worrying. At the official level, it was almost as if the earthquake had not occurred at all.
Even the earthquake monitors across the world are silent on the incident, with the websites, which record tremors across the world, throwing up no data on what at least Gangtok experienced on Tuesday morning. This is probably because the tremor was too localised [in extent of shockwaves] and not strong enough to show up with any significance on ‘international’ monitors. The only officially recorded earthquake at that moment was an extremely weak one [2.9] with its epicentre somewhere in Arunachal Pradesh. That said, isn’t it necessary for a State which is barely returning to normalcy after the 18 Sept shocker, to have more immediate access to information and more responsibility towards sharing it with the people and experts?
The 6.8 Richter Scale earthquake of 18 September caught everyone, even experts, by surprise. No one had projected the Sikkim Himalaya as having fault lines active enough to throw up something of this magnitude. But one did strike. Earthquake prediction might be an imperfect science when it comes to appointing exact dates for the next one, but is reasonable reliable when it comes to predicting the scale of a Big One that each area is priming for. This projection relies on studying the tectonic activity of the area, correlating it with the nature of the different fault and slip lines running through it and then calculating how much energy is being released and how much of is pent up for an eventual explosion. For this, the scientists study data collected from earthquake monitors located across a region [Sikkim too has some, although far from enough]. It is important to bear in mind here that only tremors stronger than 3 on the Richter Scale are perceptible on the surface, and there are several ‘earthquakes’ which strike but are not noticed by us because they are lower intensity. But this is important data for scientists, because the frequency [even when not ‘felt’ by people] says a lot and could serve as pointer towards increased instability or other sub-surface activity which can inform projections. And yet, as of now, no one in Sikkim seems to know where the Tuesday temblor was born or how strong it was. The data must be recorded in one of the meters somewhere, but it will be a while before it is extracted and despatched to earthquake specialists for Sikkim based much beyond the State borders. Apart from the irony that a State, which is visited often by earthquakes and is now genuinely fearful of them, does not have an ‘in-house’ earthquake expert, it is also worrying that given the fragility of scared minds, no effort has been taken yet to streamline information on such events to ensure immediate and seamless information sharing with the people.
The Tuesday morning temblor should be seen as a reminder, a wake-up call to return to evaluating the State’s earthquake preparedness in the right earnest. Earthquakes cannot however be ignored; not when one is residing in the Himalaya and straddling two zones – Nepal and Shillong – which have been scientifically certified to have developed enough tectonic strain along the fault lines to release an 8-plus magnitude earthquake. And then there is Sikkim’s own potential for quakes which has now scaled up. Sikkim knows well what even a 6.8 earthquake can deliver, and to get an idea of what the Big One can despatch, sample this: The 8.7 intensity earthquake of 1897 had its epicentre in Shillong and caused extensive devastation in Sikkim, taking down the under construction palace in Gangtok, levelling the Tumlong palace above Phodong, damaging monasteries and sending down many landslides. Tremors are reported to have been felt as far away as in Mumbai and in Kolkata, where the bell tower of the St. Paul Cathedral collapsed. While nothing can be done to avoid earthquakes, a lot can be done to prepare better for it, and this process begins by studying tectonics in more detail. Such study will reinforce the policy interventions required and frequent and timely information sharing will ensure that the people don’t forget the temperamental nature of the land they live on. When they remember well, they will support and even ensure that all the right policy decisions are taken and enforced in earnest...