Russia offers help in quake forecasting

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, FEB.25. Russian scientists have offered to help India in earthquake monitoring and forecasting to avoid such massive loss of life and property as happened in Gujarat last month.

``We could assist India in seismic mapping of the territory and preparing forecasts of future earth tremors'', says Dr. Alexey Zavyalov, leading researcher at the O. Yu. Shmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Russia was among the first countries to send its rescue team and relief supplies to quake victims in Gujarat. It has also offered to invite 400 children from quake-hit areas to Russia for rest and rehabilitation.

With large parts of the former Soviet Union situated in seismically active zones, the Russian scientists have accumulated rich experience in studying the pattern of earthquakes.

In the ongoing debate among the scientific community as to whether earthquakes can be predicted, Dr. Zavyalov takes the side of optimists.

``It is true that our knowledge about earthquakes and their development is still inadequate, but this does not mean we should sit and wait till our knowledge becomes exhaustive, says the Russian scientist. We can try and forecast earthquakes on the basis of available information and in the process accumulate knowledge and experience, he says.

Seismologists have so far identified about 400 warning signals of earth tremors, but none of them can be reliably used to predict earthquakes. However, a selected set of quake forerunners can help make predictions fairly accurate. Dr. Zavyalov and his colleagues developed two methods of forecasting quakes, based on computer-aided analysis of pre-signs.

The methods are effective in predicting quakes of magnitude 5.5 and higher over periods from five to 10 years. They have broken new ground in seismic studies, as until now scientists were able to evaluate the likelihood of earthquakes over hundreds of years.

The new techniques have proved their accuracy in different parts of the world, with 60 to 80 per cent of earthquakes occurring in areas pinpointed by Russian seismologists. These included earthquakes in southern Sumatra last year, in Greece in 1997, in Armenia in 1988, and in many other regions. One of the methods assesses the probability of earthquake in an area measuring 500 km by 500 km, the other narrows down to 100 km by 100 km.

``If we get sufficiently full catalogues of seismic activity in India we can use our methods to show areas where earthquakes are likely to strike five to 10 years from now'', says Dr. Zavyalov. He adds that reliability of forecasts depends on the right density of monitoring stations and the accuracy of instruments.

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