Seismic station Qarasou resumes its work
DUSHANBE, December 28, Asia-Plus — Rehabilitated seismic station Qarasou resumed its work on December 26.
Jahongir Nizomov, director of the Institute for Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, told Asia-Plus that the station was launched in 1955 and it had been seriously damaged along with two other seismic stations during the civil conflict in the country.
According to him, the rehabilitated station is provided with digital equipment delivered from Russia that will allow developing researches in the field of seismology.
Internationally known Tajik specialist in seismology, academician Sobit Nematulloyev, noted that development of seismology allows conducting regular seismic monitoring. “It is of significant importance for Tajikistan, which is due to its geographical location in one of the world”s most active seismic zones and a mountainous landscape is a disaster-prone country,” the academician said.
Over the last hundred years, more than 200 devastating earthquakes have occurred in the country, leaving thousands of dead.
“The task of the seismic service is to facilitate minimizing number of quake victims,” said the researcher, “The seismic station Qarasou registering events in real time will help plan and implement effective measures aimed at reducing seismic risks.”
According to the Institute for Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, with support of the Dushanbe Office of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) a project aimed at installing digital equipment at seven seismic stations seismic stations in Dushanbe, Norak, Panjakent, Khorog, Gharm, Shahritus and Isfara is being held in the country.
Addressing an inaugurating ceremony at the Qarasou stations, academician Mamadsho Ilolov, President of the Academy of Science, said that the Academy board had made a decision to restore the geophysical service in Tajikistan. “The service will conduct seismic monitoring in the country and provide disaster-related information to relevant organizations such the Ministry of Energy and Industries, Committee for Emergency Situations, etc,” Mr. Ilolov said, noting that the geophysical service would assume management of a new network of digital seismic stations.
SDC has funded the project for rehabilitation of seismic monitoring network in Tajikistan.
The overall goal of the project is to strengthen the capacity of the geophysical service of the Republic of Tajikistan to contribute to risk and disaster management, through seismic monitoring and provision of disaster related information for national and international stakeholders. To this end, the project will install a seismic monitoring network of seven up-to-date digital seismic stations (from Nanometrics Inc., Canada) with real-time registration of events, which will contribute to the planning and implementation of effective disaster mitigation measures aimed at seismic risk reduction in the country and its neighboring states.
The project objectives are: 1)
installation and operation of digital seismic monitoring network based on the existing seismic stations in Dushanbe, Khorog, Gharm, Shahritus, Norak, Panjakent and Isfara (during the 2005 and 2006 period five seismic station were set up and are now successfully operating); 2) train staff of the Geophysical Service of the Academy of Science of RT on data processing, operation and maintenance of the new seismic network; 3) cooperation with other government institutions, international and neighboring partners (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and China); and 4) and share and exchange of seismic information (near real-time records and historic data) with partners via website of the Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering.
