Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Wednesday launched the country's first earthquake early warning mobile application 'Uttarakhand Bhookamp Alert' developed by IIT Roorkee.

Launching the lifeguarding mobile app at the secretariat here, Dhami said considering Uttarakhand's vulnerability to earthquakes, people should be informed about the availability of a mobile application like this.

The application is available in two versions, compatible with both Android and iOS platforms.

The project was sponsored by the Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA).

It is a path-breaking achievement for the institute as it is the country's first application for notifying people about earthquake alerts. It can also help tell the location of people trapped inside a structure following an earthquake.

Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) is a real-time earthquake information system that can detect the onset of the earthquake and issue warnings before the significant tremors take hold of an area, according to a press release by IIT Roorkee.

The physical basis for an earthquake early warning system is the speed of the seismic waves, which propagate after the release of stress from faults movement. The strong ground shaking is caused by shear waves which travel at about half the speed of the primary waves and much slower than electromagnetic signals. The EEW system exploits this advantage, it said.

The programme was initially launched as a pilot project by the Ministry of Earth Sciences for the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. Given its success and the need of the region, the IIT Roorkee's EEW project proposal was extended further by the Uttarakhand government.

"I take immense pride in sharing that IIT-R has designed an Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) mobile app, for timely dissemination of information regarding an earthquake occurrence in the neighbourhood and the expected time of arrival and intensity at the location to prevent any loss of life," IIT Roorkee director Ajit K Chaturvedi said.