Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Aug 24: In a letter addressed to the chief secretary of the state government and state relief commissioner, Gangaram Baderiya, director of National Centre for Seismology, Dr Vineet K Gehlot, has clarified that the deluge in Kodagu has nothing to do with the mild earthquake experienced in parts of the district on July 9 this year. "Landslides do not have anything to do with the above earthquake. The information that landslides have been occurring because of the above earthquake is nothing but a rumour. There is no scientific basis for arriving at such a conclusion," he stressed.

"At 12.52 pm on July 9, earthquake with an intensity of 3.4 had been experienced on the border area adjoining Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada districts and Kerala state. But the notion that landslides and earthquake are inter connected has no scientific basis. Earthquakes occurring frequently at Sahyadri region covering Western Ghats is an ongoing process and there have not been examples of landslides happening because of them. Normally the landslides in this region happen because of heavy rains, deforestation, and indiscriminate digging conducted in areas located on slopes," he explained in the letter. Detailed study would be needed to pinpoint the actual reasons for this year's phenomenon, he added.

After the rumour spread widely in Kodagu district that floods and landslides experienced in the district were the outcome of last month's earthquake, people had become jittery. As the rumour got wide publication in the media and people began to believe in them, the state government had requested the geologists of the centre to visit the district and conduct study. The geologists who visited the district have also dismissed these rumours as false.

Dr K Gehlot has also sought the mobile phone numbers of the officials engaged in disaster relief works so that SMS about earthquakes if any can be sent them any time of the day and night.