Case Study: India
Background
- India is situated in a highly active seismic zone originating from the Himalaya region whose terrain poses a difficult monitoring challenge
- The zone straddles the borders of Pakistan, Nepal, China and India such that any early warning system needs to be able to address potential cross-border events
Project
- We deployed 3 array stations and 2 single-sensor stations in Uttarakhand state in cooperation with the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee state in cooperation with the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
- The challenging deployment contended with difficult terrain, extreme weather, and limited 2G wireless communications infrastructure
Results
- A magnitude 4.5 earthquake occurred in the state of Himachal Pradesh in north India, about 270 km away from our network, in March 2020
- Our system accurately detected the event in real time, while the Indian network failed to do so
- We received funding from a joint Israel-India research fund to plan a national network. Based on the success of the pilot, we received a grant from the World Bank to deploy additional stations. We have also begun a research project jointly funded by the Indian and Israeli governments to create a blueprint for a vast regional network along the Himalayas
