Good Morning Bangalore! We are safe, for sure, topographically. No natural calamities to the magnitude of Uttarakhand can strike us. Considered one of the ideal cities in the country also with respect to climate and its location from both the eastern and western coasts, experts tell City Express that Bangalore is relatively safe compared to other cities.
More good news! The city is free from landslides, earthquakes, mud slides, cyclones and tornadoes. And the caution: Our obsession with unsustainable development and haphazard planning, will eventually result in man made disasters.
Lucky due to topography
Most experts assert that Bangalore is renowned for its flat topology. The highest point is Vidyaranyapura Doddabettahalli (962 m) which lies on the central ridge running NNE-SSW (north north east-south south west). According to Professor B Vijayalakshmi, geographer, the location of Bangalore makes it ideal for sustaining and nurturing a civilisation. The dominant rock unit in the area includes granites, gneisses and migmatites (different kinds of rocks). Also, it is not prone to any natural calamity. “Bangalore is located at 920m above sea level. Since it is situated on igneous and metamorphic rocks, there can be no landslide whatsoever. Moreover, it is located in the heart of peninsular India and is equidistant from both eastern and western coastal lines. As a result we have moderate weather conditions. Even if there is a major shift in tectonic plates in the Arabian Sea, the effect on Bangalore will not be disastrous. Likewise, if Chennai experiences a sudden or major weather change resulting in cyclones, at the most, the city will experience heavy rainfall,” she said and further added that the only disaster that awaits Bangalore is man-made.
Neither shaken nor stirred
With the topography being ideal for sustenance, Professor Valdya, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, is quite confident that the city is safe and will never be ravaged by nature’s fury.
In fact, he is sure that the possibility of an earthquake occurring in the city too is extremely rare. Bangalore is in the heart of the Mysore plateau which eventually forms a larger part of the Precambrian Deccan plateau. The plateau is surrounded by mountains on all sides.
And, they are millions of years old. It is almost imperceptible and the effect of minor shifts in tectonic plates is miniscule. It happens over hundreds of years.
“Usually, plate shift is a result of strain build up and unless and until, the build up reaches the threshold point, there will be no shifts. Based on my investigations, there can be no major tectonic plate shifts in Bangalore as the strain build up will never reach the threshold point. More than natural calamities, we have a bigger problem at hand -- deficiency of water. Our arrogance and disrespect towards nature will destroy us. Indiscriminate de-filling and exploitation of water and ground resources will soon lead to a point where we will have nothing left,” he said.
What history says
According to city historian Arun Prasad, when you look at history, the city was built on a safe location by Kempegowda. Bangalore is literally a plain land surrounded by hillocks. Prasad said that the place is extremely safe from natural calamities.
“When you talk about destruction, the only possible disaster that we need to be worried about is man made. It is condemnable how we continue to destroy our own environment and turn every bit of green cover into a concrete jungle. We have destroyed our lakes, chopped trees and put up high rise buildings everywhere. Earlier, lakes were all interconnected and there was abundant water supply. Sankey tank was connected to Millers tank which was then connected to Dharmambudhi Kere. Today, the water levels are reducing at an alarming rate,” he said.