Kolhapur Scientist Predicts Earthquakes With Radio Waves

Kolhapur: Despite advances in sciences, earthquake is a natural phenomena that cannot be predicted accurately. There is also no way of preventing the natural occurrence that has struck several parts of the world in the recent past.

However, a researcher from Kolhapur has been studying radio waves under the earth to predict earthquakes at a laboratory he has set up all by himself. The estimates of Prasanna Waichal have proved to be accurate in the last six years. A resident of Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur, Waichal holds a master’s degree in electronics and has more than 25 years of work experience in industrial research and development for design and development of specialised and strategic electronics systems and academic teaching and research at post-graduate levels, both in India and abroad.

Waichal has been conducted research on earthquakes for the last 35 years. The researcher uses a receiver, micro computers and Google Eye at his laboratory to predict earthquakes. Waichal said he had predicted the earthquake at Koyna Dam and informed the same to the state disaster control room.

Waichal said Japan, Taiwan, Afghanistan and Philippines along with Nepal and Bhutan witness the maximum number of earthquakes. He is also a licensed amateur radio operator with call-sign VU3OOI. He claims to have discovered a method to predict earthquakes using very-low-frequency (VLF) multipath-multi-frequency propagation technique.

Waichal said the earth’s atmosphere is divided into two parts, the lower atmosphere that is close to the earth’s surface and the outer side that opens into the space and can be called the upper atmosphere. It is this upper atmosphere that gets ionised from the Sun’s x-rays and extreme ultra-violet radiations.

Prasanna Waichal's prediction of earthquake in April this year (ETV Bharat)

Positive ions and negative charges (electrons) are generated as part of this ionisation process. This ionised layer is called the ionosphere. Depending upon the density and height of the atmosphere, there exists a gradient of number of electrons generated as a function of height. This leads further to various layers having different electron densities. Starting from the bottom to upward direction, the D layer is at approximately 60km-90km height. Next, the E layer is at around 90km150km height, while F1 and F2 layers are at 150km-250km and 250-350km height approximately. During night, since ionisation stops, the recombination starts and the D layer vanishes while the F1 and F2 merge into a single F-layer.

Depending upon the frequency of operation in the LF/MF and HF range (30kHz to 30MHz), some layers absorb the radio signals while others reflect the signals. If a frequency is still higher, it simply passes through the ionosphere to the outer space. The D layer absorbs or attenuates most of the radio signals in HF band but the E, F1, and F2 layers reflect some of the frequencies. This varies depending upon time of the day, dawn and dusk conditions, etc, he said. Waichal said he wishes to share his experiences and technique with researchers across the world so that earthquakes can be predicted in advance and precious lives saved.