Our Correspondent
IMPHAL, January 7
A 3-member expert team of Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee have arrived on Thursday in the earthquake hit Manipur to study quake impact and check out damaged buildings and structure including iconic Ima Keithel, popular mother’s market buildings in Imphal.
Soon after their arrival, Dr Yogendra Singh, Dr Manish Srikande and Dr BK Maheshwari of Earthquake engineering department, IIT Roorkee called on the state Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh along with state public works department(PDW) officials. Later the experts’ team along with state PWD minister Dr Kh Ratankumar and his officials visited the damage sites in and around including iconic Ima Keithel, in the heart of Imphal wherein the visiting experts observed that the damage portion of the market could be repaired.“The Building has developed serious damage but it could be removed and repairing can be done by putting some additional materials”, Prof Yogendra said and added that there is no need to demolish and reconstruct the existing market building but need extensive analysis on how to repair it. “Nobody can predict an earthquake, it is not possible to predict on when or where or how strong it will occur at any place”, the professor said.
Earlier the state PWD authority based on their survey reports, had declared two(Luxmi Market and the New Market) out of three in the iconic Mother’s Market Complexes, with a ministerial block in the State Secretariat in Imphal, ‘not safe’ after the earthquake damaged sizeable portions of walls and pillars of the said two buildings.The said buildings have also been cordoned off since then.
Appreciating the move of the state authority, the visiting engineers admitted that the state administration has done right thing by evacuating the building.
About 513 buildings and structures were reported damaged across Manipur when a powerful 6.8 magnitude pre-dawn earthquake in the last 50 years struck northeastern state and beyond which claimed eight lives and left 96 injured in Manipur alone, on Monday morning, according to preliminary reports of the State Relief and Disaster Management department on Thursday.
A senior official of the state PWD said that the visiting experts’ team will also assess other areas of the state and visit other damaged structures before their departure on January 11.
The state Works Minister Dr Kh Ratankumar said repairing or re-construction of Luxmi market and New market buildings of Ima Keithel , would be done based on the report of the expert team. The department is also conducting a separate survey besides assessing the damages of the buildings and structures across the state in connection with Monday’s earthquake, he added.
