Dream Projects Initiated

During a visit to Geo Forschungs Zentrum (GFZ), Potsdam, Germany, I spent time with Prof. Dr. Rolf Emmermann, Director, International Continental Drilling Program (ICDP). He was convinced that Koyna, India is a suitable place to put deep bore-hole laboratory for the near field study of earthquakes. This finally resulted in completing a 3 km deep Pilot Borehole in June 2017. The studies carried out shall provide the required inputs for building a ~ 7 km deep borehole laboratory at Koyna. This would be a unique facility for near-field study of earthquakes, globally. Despite of all scientific and technical developments the lives lost due to earthquakes and the resultant tsunamis continues to grow. In the first 23 years of the 21st Century, human lives claimed by earthquakes and tsunamis have far exceeded compared to the human lives’ losses in the entire 20th Century. We need to develop earthquake and tsunami resilient societies. An effort in this direction has been made by creating the scenarios as to what would happen if one of the past earthquakes repeats today. Scenario were built for the repeat of the 1897 Shillong and 1905 Kangra earthquakes in the Himalayan earthquake belt. It is found that while the lives lost in 1897 and 1905 were 1500 and 20,000 respectively; a repeat of such an earthquake would claim several hundred thousand lives. Year long exercises were conducted in the vicinity of these two earthquakes with the participation of all stockholders to develop and earthquake resilient society.