Scientists squabble over quake epicentre

Monday, July 7 1997

Scientists squabble over quake epicentre

UNITED NEWS OF INDIA

JABALPUR, July 6: The row over the exact epicentre of the May 22 earthquake-here has now snowballed into a controversy with scientists making various claims.

Even after more than one-and-half month, the exact location of the devastating quake's epicentre has not been ascertained.

Noted geophysicist and the former director-grade scientist of National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) Hyderabad, Dr. Janardhan J Negi, Experts of the India Metereology Department (IMD) and the Geological Survey of India (GSI), and the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar, had also claimed epicentres at varying places, including the area near Bargi dam site.

Latest claim about the epicentre came from Jabalpur Jawaharlal Nehru Agriculture university geophysicist Dr K K Seth, he maintains that the epicentre was at the 80.1 longitude east and 23.1 latitude north 20 km From Jabalpur, in the south-east direction between Koshamghat and Amanpura villages in Jabalpur district.

The epicentre, he said, was 15 km from the Bargi dam reservoir while the dam itself was 20 km from the epicentre. He said, he had found out the epicentre by analysing the data of the longitude and latitude of the quake, obtained from the India Metereology Department observatories at Dehradun and Nagpur.

Dr Negi, during his visit to Jabalpur recently, asserted that the epicentre lay between Koshamghat and the Jawaharlal Nehru Agriculture university, at the suburban Adhartal area of the city. He also stated that the epicentre can not be in Mandla district, but in Jabalpur district itself, as it had suffered more destruction than the former.

Before the devastating quake hit Jabalpur and its surrounding three districts of Mandla, Seoni and Chhindawada on May 22, there was no seismological observatory here to monitor the earthquakes. Soon after occurrence of the quake, the IMD, Delhi, GSI station here and the Wadia Institute of Himalayan eology, Dehradun, had temporarily set up portable micro-earthquake recorders at Jabalpur and its surrounding areas to study seismicity.