IIEST restores, displays country's oldest seismograph, unearthed from godown
2
Kolkata: India's oldest seismograph, which had been lying at the wood godown of Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology, Shibpur, till a few months ago, has finally been restored and displayed at the eight-storey building that houses the engineering college director's office and some departments.
The
earthquake
measuring instrument, an original Benioff horizontal seismograph, was built by Victor Hugo Benioff of California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1932. It was Caltech that had gifted the seismograph to the geophysical laboratory of the institute, then known as BE College, Shibpur, marking India's entry into the global network of seismic observatories. IIEST Board of governors chairperson Tejaswini Ananth Kumar said, "This instrument (although defunct now) stands as a testament to India's early contributions to global geophysical research, with BE College playing a pioneering role in advancing seismology and establishing the country's presence in international scientific collaborations.
It also shows the city's contribution to science, technology and research and is necessary to showcase the evolution to students."
In 2019, the instrument was pulled out from beneath a one-storey building that was built on the campus for the geophysical lab but was later used as the university engineer's office. At present, the building houses a canteen. Though there were plans to lodge the heritage device in a proper place, it did not materialise and was kept at the wood godown, said a campus insider.
"It was around June that we came across the seismograph at the wood godown while cleaning it," IIEST spokesperson Nirmalya Bhattacharyya said.
" Under the leadership of director VMSR Murthy, we decided to clean it, restore it and put it on display. Assistant registrar Bivore Das helped us with the history and importance of the instrument. A rare copy of one of the recordings of an earthquake has also been retrieved and displayed."
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Bhattacharyya highlighted that the seismograph could not only detect local tremors but also distant seismic events from the Himalayan belt, Southeast Asia and the mid-Indian Ocean ridges. "The geophysical lab used it to contribute seismic data to international earthquake catalogues. It became an essential part of earthquake monitoring during the interwar period, post-World War II and especially during the International Geophysical Year (1957–58).
It was also during that period, under the leadership of maths professor S K Chakraborty, that BE College was selected as one of the few Indian observatories to send seismic and cosmic ray data," he said.
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