2017-10-31
On 10 October, the earthquake evaluation team installed a seismometer on a site in Jangothang at an altitude of 4,086 metres to monitor high-sensitivity weak motion along the eastern part of the Himalayan mountain range. Since earthquakes in South Asia have been active along the Himalayan mountain range, earthquake monitoring and hazard assessment for the Bhutan Himalayan region are urgent issues. The team comprised officials from the Department of Geology and Mines (DGM), Kyoto University and the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED). Since the installation site is in a mountainous area, the team had to trek for more than six days, carrying their equipment. This is the eighth high-sensitivity earthquake monitoring station in Bhutan that is designed to understand earthquakes.
In September 2017, an engineer from the Department of Culture (DOC), Ms Phuntsho Wangmo, began her long-term training course at Nagoya City University (NCU). She aims to obtain a PhD degree from the Graduate School of Design and Architecture of NCU and her study focuses on the development of seismic technology for composite masonry buildings in Bhutan. Ms Wangmo is a SATREPS scholarship student, selected by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in Japan (MEXT).