Roorkee (The Hawk): Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) displays the fully functional Uttarakhand State Earthquake Early Warning System (UEEWS), an earthquake warning system, at the 3rd National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (3rd NPDRR) exhibition on March 10-11, 2023, held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. UEEWS is India’s First Regional Earthquake Early Warning System developed by Dr Kamal, Project Lead, Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Center of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation and Management, IIT Roorkee and his team. The earthquake early warning system (EEWS) Laboratory team had the privilege of presenting India's first regional earthquake early warning system, UEEWS in the presence of The Honorable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, and Honorable Home Minister, Shri Amit Shah. The political stalwarts personally interacted with the team and received a detailed briefing on the system's capabilities and benefits.
The UEEWS is comprised of approximately 170 seismic sensors installed in Uttarakhand. The central server at EEWS Laboratory, CoEDMM IIT Roorkee, continuously monitors the incoming data stream and detects earthquake events. When moderate to high-magnitude earthquakes are detected by the server, a warning is issued to the public. Currently, two modes of warning dissemination are used: the mobile app, BhuDEV (Bhookamp Disaster Early Vigilante), an updated version of "Uttarakhand Bhookamp Alert," and siren units. Talking about the project, Prof K K Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, said, "The Uttarakhand State Earthquake Early Warning System is an accomplishment for the State where the earthquake is a common occurrence. The early warning of ground shaking during an earthquake will rapidly detect the initiation of an earthquake, estimate the level of ground shaking to be expected, and issue a warning before significant ground shaking starts, saving multiple lives."
Dr Kamal, Project Lead, Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Center of Excellence in Disaster Mitigation and Management, IIT Roorkee, highlighted, "During two moderate earthquakes, one on November 8, 2022, with a magnitude of Mw 5.8, and the other on January 24, 2023, with a magnitude of Mw 5.8, which occurred about 100 km away from the instrumented area in the Nepal region, successful warnings were issued to the public of Uttarakhand. This was made possible with the mobile app where users have been receiving notifications on the app for all light earthquakes occurring in the instrumented region."
