Joshimath, gateway to the pilgrimage site Badrinath, and skiing destination Auli, is witnessing land subsidence.
A team of experts from NGRI will conduct subsurface physical mapping of the affected town. (Wikimedia Commons)
A team of experts from CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad, left on Thursday, 12 January, for Joshimath in Uttarakhand, which has witnessed widespread land subsidence recently, to conduct a subsurface physical mapping of the affected town.
The 10-member team, headed by NGRI’s senior principal scientist Anand K Pandey, is expected to be in the Himalayan town for two weeks, during which it will collate and analyse data to ascertain the reason for the ground is “sinking” there.
Meanwhile, the number of subsidence-affected homes rose to 678, with 27 more families being evacuated to safety, a bulletin from the Disaster Management Authority in Chamoli said. So far 82 families have been shifted to safer locations in the town.
The Centre had, on Tuesday, announced that it will install micro-seismic observation systems in Joshimath.
Joshimath, the gateway to famous pilgrimage sites like Badrinath and Hemkund Sahib, and international skiing destination Auli, is facing a major challenge due to land subsidence.
“Our equipment is already on the way. On 13 January, the whole team will move to this site. We will be there for at least two weeks to do a survey of the area. We are planning to do shallow subsurface physical mapping for water saturation and soil characteristics,” said Pandey.
He further said NGRI has been conducting several research works in Uttarakhand for the past four years in the areas of earthquakes, floods and landslides.
Pandey said they are going to do an electrical survey which is very important at such seismic zones.
The senior scientist said they will be using multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW) method, a non-destructive seismic method to evaluate material layer thickness and its shear wave velocity, to measure the thickness of the soil.
The team will also use ground penetration to find out minor cracks, water saturation of smaller size or fractures in the subsoil or cavities using ground penetrating radar.
“In addition to that, we are also using field mapping,” he said.
NGRI is one of the largest scientific networks in Uttarakhand and in future, the institute will be able to provide early warnings about floods also, he said.
(With PTI inputs)
