Over the last 10 years, various parts of India have experienced powerful earthquakes causing much damage to life and property. These earthquakes along with their location and magnitude on Richter’s Scale are:

The earthquake in Bhuj caused immense damage to life and property in which 20,000 people died and 1.66 lac (1 lac = 1 00 000) people were injured, and 3.31 lac houses were destroyed and 7.5 lac houses damaged. Hence the vulnerability of this part of the sub-continent to earthquakes is beyond doubt. The situation is made more serious by rapid urbanisation and growth in population. The phenomena of urbanization has gone out of proportion with nearly half of the world’s population staying in urban areas, which constitutes only 3% of the land mass. This concentration of population has exposed a large number of people to various hazards at one point of time.

The French Embassy in India has taken the initiative to organise an “Indo French Workshop on Seismic Hazards” with the aim to initiate deliberations between experts from India and France on the following themes:

• Bilateral Co-operation

• Seismic Micronization of major cities and urban centres

• Technologies for quick response to the crisis (Disaster Management)

• Diagnosis of earthquake (ravaged buildings and their retrofitting)

The core intervenants to animate the debate are:

• Mr. Olivier Louis, Minister Counsellor, Economic, Trade and Finance commission

• Mr. V. Suresh, Chairman from HUDCO

• Mr. J-C Lezier, French expert from BRGM

• Mr. Pierre Mouroux, BRGM normative aspects, Microzonation, Natural Disaster Management

• Mr. Naved Masood, Joint Secretary, Natural Disaster Management, Ministry of Agriculture

• Dr. R.K Bhandari, Director, Centre for Disaster Mitigation and Management

• Mr. P. R. Swarup, Director General, Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC)

• Mr. Joseph Mathew, Director, Govt of India Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty alleviation

• Mr. Kamal Khokani, Gujarat Delegation

• Mr. Inder Jit Singh, Local representative for BRGM

From the French side, experts from BRGM are taking part in the deliberations. BRGM is an organisation expert in the field of Risk Profiles and Risk Mitigation Strategies for Municipalities. BRGM has also initiated two ambitious programmes, viz. “RADIUS” and “GEMITIS”, for seismic risk reduction.

Form the Indian side, experts from the relevant Government Ministries / Departments, HUDCO, Construction Industry Development Council (CIDC) and the Industry are taking part in the workshop