Director of the Department of Meteorology Ahmed Abdulla explaining a point to Transport Minister HE Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti as Qatar Civil Aviation Authority chairman Abdulla Nasser Turki al-Subaie and others look on during a briefing on the seismic network at the Department of Meteorology headquarters on Monday. PICTURE: Jayan Orma.
By Ramesh Mathew
Staff Reporter
The second phase of Qatar's ambitious seismic network expansion programme, covering the high-rise buildings of West Bay, will take place early next year, a senior official said on Monday.
Mohamed Jabir al-Merri, head of Observation of the Department of Meteorology at the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority, revealed this on the sidelines of a visit by Minister of Transport HE Jassim Seif Ahmed al-Sulaiti to the headquarters of the Meteorology department in Abu Hamour.
Elaborating on the country's seismic mission, the official said the department has already set up six seismic stations in Al Khor, Dukhan, Abu Samra, Al-Terrana, Umm Washiah and Al Wakra since the launch of the programme in September 2013. The seismic stations support the functioning of the Early Warning Centre at the headquarters round-the-clock with regular feed of data information. The facility would be able to alert the residents in advance in the event of a tremor anywhere in the region, regardless of its intensity, said al-Merri, while recalling that the country started working seriously on the development since the tremors in the West Bay area in 2012.
As part of the seismic network expansion next year, the department would install sensors on some of the major high-rise buildings in the Tower Zones, especially those housing government offices, he said. This is part of a one-year programme aimed at setting up Risk Assessment and Hazard Management centres in Qatar, added al-Merri.
Even though the chances of a tremor of bigger magnitude are minimum in the country or anywhere in its immediate neighbourhood, there are still chances owing to the large-scale oil and gas exploration and also to the large-scale digging for major construction activities in the region, especially those related to high-rise buildings.
Replying to Gulf Times, the official said the department has authentic records of all tremors that the region has experienced since 1950 and there is nothing to show that the Gulf states have ever experienced a major earthquake during the period even though Iran, which is lying in the same zone, and neighbouring Pakistan were rocked by repeated tremors on several occasions during the last 60 years. Recently Oman experienced a mild tremor, he added.
Besides the minister, Qatar Civil Aviation Authority chairman Abdulla Nasser Turki al-Subaie and Director of Meteorology Ahmed Abdulla were also present along with others.
