KARACHI, Oct 29: Experts on Saturday underlined the need for the immediate establishment of a seismic network for the city. Delivering a keynote address at a seminar organized by the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, the former director-general of the Geological Survey of Pakistan, Ali Hamza Kazmi, spoke on “Active faults and earthquake hazards in Pakistan.”

“Young Pakistanis are unaware of the fact that this country has been home to severe earthquakes for the past several centuries. Accounts of ancient travellers and historians indicate that as far back as AD 893 a large coastal city in the vicinity of Indus Delta was destroyed by an earthquake,” he said.

“Earthquake hazard zones cover vast areas in Pakistan. Keeping in view the recent disastrous northern earthquake and the earlier 1935 Quetta earthquake, this must cause great concern to all of us. We cannot stop the earthquakes and must learn to live with them. The way forward is through adoption of earthquake hazard minimization techniques.”

Mr Kazmi said the first and foremost step was to introduce and enforce a simple and practical building in the high seismicity zones. “The Quetta building code is still very effective, easy to understand, execute and enforce in our rural areas. It should be enforced immediately in areas of high seismicity. For larger towns and cities, more elaborate and sophisticated codes may be introduced.”

Mr Kazmi said Karachi’s seismicity problem must be resolved immediately through installation of sophisticated scientific equipment and field research.

Nayyar Alam Zaigham, former director of the Geological Survey of Pakistan, spoke on “Seismicity and earthquake risk in Karachi”.

He said: “Possible causes of the amplification of shaking of the 1998 earthquake in the Quaidabad-Landhi-Korangi area were the presence of significant landfills and relatively thick and weak unconsolidated soil deposits in this area on which the houses are built.”

He said that recording data from at least three stations was required to compute the location and depth of an earthquake which was practically not available in the situation of low-magnitude earthquake in Karachi during 1998 and 2005.

He added that it was interesting to note that the earthquake occurred after the monsoon -– in 1998 and 2005. He wondered if there was any correlation between climatic changes and earthquakes.

Syed Aamir Ahmad Kazmi, former director-general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department, first spoke about some of those Pakistan scientists who opted to stay back in western countries in spite of recall orders issued after the 1958 martial law. He said those scientists went on to become well-renowned experts of their fields.

Mr Kazmi said that movement of tectonic plates was the cause of earthquakes in most cases. He said Pakistan had received 40 earthquakes all of which were felt in Pakistan. He added that not a single earthquake originated in Karachi in the past 10,000 years.

He said that Karachi was not prone to earthquakes.