AGARTALA, April 13 (TIWN): On January 3, a massive earthquake of 5.7 Magnitude had hit Tripura and other NE States, including few parts of Bangladesh. Although causality was reported only 1 but there were huge damages of houses and 45 houses fully collapsed, whereas more 6,685 houses were partially collapsed. As per the norm, it was clarified earlier that the fully damaged houses will be compensated with 95,100/- in plain areas and 1,01,900/- in hilly areas. For partially damaged (15%) atleast 5,200/- and Rs. 3,200/- will be received by the victims. Moreover, it has been said in the memorandum that DMs shall provide Rs. 20,000/- in advance as immediate interim relief and the assessment damage would be done by PWD Dept or RD Engineering wing.

But surprisingly, whereas at Kumarghat 31 families reported by Govt of Tripura with fully damaged houses, only 8 families were given with a compensation of Rs. 5000/-. (whereas it was said 95,100/- would be given). Apart from that there were 870 secretly damaged and 3195 partly damaged at there.

At Kamalpur around 100 applicantions are pending and the scenario of Ambassa, Longtorai Valleys are also same. Kanchanpur, Ambassa, Longtorai Valley, Bishalgarh's conditions are also same.

It's worthy to mention here that  a moderate intensity earthquake measuring 5.7 on January 3, 2017 richter scale and epicentred in Dhalai jolted the country's northeast, triggering landslides across the state.

However, there is no initiative of the state govt to prevent earthquake damage chances.

On January 21, in a United States-Northeast states 2 day long workshop held at PragnaBhawan discussion was held on ‘Good Engineering Practice in Construction’ for areas prone to earthquakes and landslides. But what surprises is that in that progaramme ULB Engineers / Junior Engineers/ CLTC personnel / Masons / Assistant Mason / ULB Engineers, Supervisors, Trainers at State Level / Beneficiaries etc. It was said that the “Participants will be trained on good engineering practices for construction of houses in Northeast States):. But no one from Tripura PWD High Level Officials were present in that programme. During the discussion it was revealed that whereas Assam is doing a very well record in constructing earthquake proof buildings, but Tripura’s 45 % homes are not earthquake proven.

The seven northeastern states - Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur - are considered by seismologists as the sixth major earthquake-prone belt in the world. The region experienced an earthquake measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale in 1897, that left over 1,600 people dead.