KARACHI: The state-of-the-art National Seismic Monitoring Network and Tsunami Warning Centre, was inaugurated at Meteorological Complex, here on Monday.Defence Minister Ch Ahmad Mukhtar was chief guest and performed the inauguration of Centre. The centre has been established by Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) with the financial support of Government of Pakistan at Karachi and a backup centre at Islamabad for monitoring of earthquakes and associated tsunamis.
The centre is supported by Eleven (11) broad band highly sensitive seismic stations which have been established at Balakot, Muzaffarabad, Gilgit, Chitral, Quetta, Khuzdar, Turbat, Zhob, Bahawalnagar, Umerkot and Karachi.These stations are capable of recording any seismic activity in Asia and the Pacific and are connected with National Centre through “Pak-Sat” Satellite for real-time data communication.
The National Seismic Centre Karachi is also connected with Global Seismic Network and real-time earthquake data of about 60 seismic stations of the world processing all the information and generating the earthquake message within 3-5 minutes of the occurrence of an earthquake and disseminating the earthquake messages to the selected users including the government agencies and authorities responsible for disaster rehabilitation activities like NDMA, ERRA etc.A total of 50 local short-period seismic stations and 50 strong ground motion recorders have also been established on various sites to record local micro-seismicity in the country and for the measurement of earth shaking during the earthquakes respectively.
According to experts this information would be valuable in designing of the earthquake-resistant building structures in urban centres.Speaking on the occasion, Ch. Ahmad Mukhtar assured that government will extend full support to PMD in the functioning and strengthening of this centre.He said that in the next phase PMD will be supported for installation of sea-based watch buoy systems, sonometers, sea level network of tide gauges and satellite communication system for the establishment of an effective early warning system for the possible tsunamis in the coastal areas of pakistan.
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