Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) organizes a symposium on seismic disaster and mitigation

GUWAHATI: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati organized a two-day symposium on 'Socio-Technological Aspects of Seismic Disaster and Mitigation (STASDM)' on account of celebrating 60 glorious years of the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology (ISET) on 23rd and 24th June 2022.

The event was jointly organized by the Centre for Disaster Management and Research (CDMR), IIT Guwahati, North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC), Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA), Department of Earthquake Engineering, IIT Roorkee and ISET. Students and faculty from different parts of the Northeast and other parts of the country participated and presented their research findings.

Prof. TG Sitharam, Director, IIT Guwahati, and President of ISET, is the Patron of the symposium.

The symposium included plenary talks, followed by invited talks in the domain of Seismic Disaster and Mitigation by various stalwarts across the country.

The Director, IIT Guwahati, said, "There is a high need to learn particularly about vibration isolation techniques which were used in ancient structures. Further, the regional seismic hazard should be given due importance in the current scenario."

Assam has been severely affected by floods at present and is prone to earthquakes. There were panel discussions in which experts from institutes such as ASDMA and NESAC as well as various industries participated as discussants to discuss how to deal with seismic disaster and mitigation and further direction in policy making.

Some of the key speakers who participated in this event include Prof T G Sitharam (Director, IIT Guwahati); Prof Rajib Shaw (Keio University, Japan); Prof Deepankar Choudhury (IIT Bombay); Prof M L Sharma (IIT Roorkee); Prof Subhadeep Banerjee (IIT Madras) and Prof Murali Krishna (IIT Tirupati).

Various important themes such as seismic hazard, soil-structure interaction, seismic analysis of structures, paleoseismology, society, gender and earthquakes among others were the prime focus of the symposium.

The conference emphasized the role of learning from historic earthquakes, confined masonry, the role of local soil in amplifying ground-shaking, and the inclusion of earthquake loading on structural and foundation design towards minimizing induced damage during a due earthquake, a press release said.

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