New Delhi

Seismic shock: the Indian government plans to build 40 seismic monitoring stations. Credit: AP

The earthquake that ravaged Gujarat last month has drawn a pledge from the Indian government to increase seismological research and allow participation by foreign scientists.

India has been deeply suspicious of foreign involvement in its earthquake research. Apart from concerns that foreign researchers would use their data to detect Indian nuclear-weapons tests, India had alleged that US researchers abused their access to the Himalayas by attempting to spy on Chinese missile programmes.

And India has previously allowed foreign seismologists to carry out field studies only in collaboration with local scientists. “We don't want to allow outsiders to walk away with data without our people knowing what was collected, and for what purpose,” explains Valangiman Ramamurthi, the science secretary.

But after a meeting of India's top scientific administrators, a change of approach was announced last week.

The Himalayas are of great interest to seismologists because they were created by the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which resulted in the formation of some two dozen active faults. The Rann of Kutchh, which on 26 January produced the country's worst earthquake in decades, is also of geological interest. But both regions are militarily sensitive.

Access by Western scientists was restricted after an incident in 1974 when it was discovered that a US expedition had left a nuclear-powered sensor on a Himalayan peak so as to spy on Chinese missile launches. And in 1988, a US gravity survey of the Himalayas was halted after the Indian defence ministry said the data could be used to programme the path of US ballistic missiles flying over the mountain range.

Indian scientists have also been refused access to parts of the Rann of Kutchh — including the vast Allah Bund (wall of God) scarp created by an earthquake in 1819 — because they lie on the heavily militarized border with Pakistan.

Vinod Gaur, a seismologist with the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation in Bangalore, welcomed the announcement. “I don't underestimate the security risks near the border, but our attitude should be to encourage important scientific investigations,” he says.

Even before the announcement, the Gujarat earthquake seemed to have eased the clampdown on foreign seismologists. Ramamurthi says that more than 30 foreign groups are already studying the aftershocks and other aspects of the earthquake.

The government has also announced a US$12 million plan to build 40 seismic monitoring stations in the Himalayas, where it fears the next major earthquake will occur.