Set up in 2016, earthquake alarm is now defunct

GURGAON: An earthquake alarm system installed on the premises of the Haryana Institute of Public Administration (HIPA) in Sector 18 has been lying defunct for four years.
The system, installed at a cost of Rs 35 lakh in 2016, is meant to trigger a siren a few seconds before an earthquake hits by sensing ground motions, giving people a little more reaction time.
It is the city’s only such alarm, installed as a pilot project by the state government in association with two private firms. It was claimed that in case of an earthquake measuring 5 or more on the Richter scale, the warning would be triggered around 30 seconds before the quake hits through the siren that would be audible within a 5km radius.
Secty Electronics GmbH and Terra Techcom Private Limited, the corporates that funded the pilot project, were in charge of the alarm system’s maintenance till 2019, after which HIPA didn’t renew the upkeep contract due to a lack of funds.
Earthquakes release energy that travels as seismic waves. Seismic sensors detect the first energy to radiate from an earthquake, the P-wave, which rarely causes damage. The sensors transmit this information to the alarm system, which issues a warning before the arrival of secondary S-waves that cause most of the damage.
HIPA's former head of disaster management Abhay Kumar Shrivastava said he had been requesting the authorities to renew the contract. There was a plan to install similar devices in other parts of the city with the help of corporate funding, but no one came forward, he said.
HIPA assistant director Rekha Dahiya told TOI, “The annual maintenance cost is extremely high and we haven’t received any funding for it, therefore it isn’t viable. We had sent letters to the government in this regard, but it didn’t make much progress as the project under which it was installed is over now,” she added.