Patna, Sept. 20: Located in earthquake-prone zone, Bihar does not have any facility to record the intensity of tremors. The state’s only seismograph at the Indian Meteorological Department’s (IMD’s) seismological station at Valmikinagar in West Champaran district is defunct for the past two years.

The seismograph at Valmikinagar, around 300km north-west from the state capital, was supposed to be replaced with a better gadget after it developed a snag two years ago. But the replacement process was delayed because the seismological station building was in a bad shape.

“After the seismograph fitted at the station developed a snag, it was decided that a new machine with more advanced features would replace it. But as the building of the seismological station required renovation, the installation of the new machine was delayed. So, the state was devoid of any seismograph for the past two years,” an IMD source told The Telegraph.

The source said the new building was ready now. The seismograph, too, had been delivered. But it would start functioning only after experts from Delhi came and made it operational.

The source claimed that the non-functioning of the Valmikinagar seismological station did not make much of a difference as the IMD offices in Delhi and Calcutta had equipment to record data in case an earthquake hit the state.

He said the objective of setting up seismological stations at local levels was to generate accurate data from different regions and corroborating them with the ones generated by the facilities at the regional offices and the headquarters of IMD. “In case an earthquake has its epicentre in Bihar, the seismograph at Valmikinagar would come into play,” he added.

Expressing surprise over the non-functioning of the IMD’s only seismological station in Bihar, academic co-ordinator of Centre for Environmental Sciences at Central University of Bihar Pradhan Parth Sarthi said: “How can IMD afford to allow this (absence of seismograph) in a state in an earthquake-prone region?”

Underlining the need of keeping the seismological station at Valmikinagar open, Sarthi said earthquake waves move like the ones created in a pool when a stone is dropped in it. One needs seismographs at regional levels, particularly in the areas under quake-prone zones, to measure the intensity of tremors.”

Sarthi underlined the need of having two seismological stations in Bihar.

“Keeping the geography of the state in mind, IMD should have a station north of the Ganga and another south of it for recording the intensity of earthquakes better,” he said.

The state government cannot do much in setting up seismological stations using its own resources though it requires regular inputs on such incidents.

“We do not have the trained manpower to handle such equipment. The government has no option but to rely on IMD data generated from its seismological stations,” a senior official of the disaster management department said.