Seismic map rollback hits quake readiness: Experts

DEHRADUN: Union govt's determination to rotation backmost India's recently introduced seismic zonation representation and revised earthquake plan codification has triggered interest among seismologists and geologists, galore of whom said the determination could weaken the country's preparedness for a aboriginal large earthquake.The revised framework, introduced successful Nov 2025 by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), projected important updates to India's seismic plan norms, including placing the full Himalayan arc nether a caller Zone VI - the highest seismic hazard category.

India’s seismic hazard acold from marginal, pass geologistsSeveral experts described the withdrawal arsenic “a missed accidental to fortify India’s catastrophe resilience”, peculiarly successful regions that scientists agelong warned could acquisition a devastating earthquake.

Senior geoscientist CP Rajendran termed the rollback a “bad step”. “We don’t cognize what triggered the govt to rotation backmost specified a bold policy. The caller seismic codification was based connected the cognition the technological assemblage had accumulated astir earthquakes and its imaginable interaction connected India,” helium said.Rajendran added that scientists repeatedly warned that the Himalayan portion could witnesser a magnitude 8 oregon a larger quake successful future.

“New codification was a reflection of the existent earthquake risks the state faces,” Rajendran said.Geologists pointed retired that India’s seismic hazard was acold from marginal. According to experts, astir 59% of the country’s landmass and astir 80% of the colonisation fell nether mean to precise precocious seismic hazard zones.Piyoosh Rautela, geologist and erstwhile enforcement manager of Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority, said the projected revisions to the codification represented a large measurement guardant successful improving the country’s preparedness.“The projected revisions marked a large measurement successful strengthening India’s seismic plan model to amended support the country’s built situation from aboriginal earthquakes,” Rautela said. He added that the newly- projected Zone VI covering the Himalayan arc acknowledged the persistent tectonic menace on the Indo-Eurasian sheet bound — akin to the earthquakes seen during the 2001 Bhuj and 2015 Nepal earthquakes.Experts further said the revised codification introduced stronger information measures, including improved plan spectra, a 10-30% summation successful basal shear requirements, stricter rules for structural irregularities, and much rigorous geotechnical and dynamic analyses. These changes aimed to beforehand performance-based engineering — ensuring buildings were designed not lone to past shaking, but besides to minimise illness risks and economical losses during ample quakes.At the aforesaid time, experts acknowledged that the revised codification had large implications for operation practices and ongoing infrastructure projects crossed the country.