IIT-Roorkee launches India's first quake early warning mobile app

Dehradun: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee said it has launched "Uttarakhand Bhookamp Alert '', which is 'India's first' Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) mobile app.

The app is available for both Android and iOS platforms, it said. The project was sponsored by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA). Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat launched the app on Wednesday.

The project was sponsored by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA). It is a path-breaking achievement for the institute as it is the country's first application for notifying people about earthquake alerts.

It can also help tell the location of people trapped inside a structure following an earthquake. Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) is a real-time earthquake information system that can detect the onset of the earthquake and issue warnings before the significant tremors take hold of an area, according to a press release by IIT Roorkee.

The physical basis for an earthquake early warning system is the speed of the seismic waves, which propagate after the release of stress from faults movement.

The strong ground shaking is caused by shear waves which travel at about half the speed of the primary waves and much slower than electromagnetic signals. The EEW system exploits this advantage, it said. The programme was initially launched as a pilot project by the Ministry of Earth Sciences for the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand.