The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will conduct mock drills on February 15 in the northern region of the country to generate awareness among people about earthquakes. The states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Union Territory of Chandigarh will be involved in these mock drills.

This was announced during a meeting of NDMA organised for awareness generation campaign under project 'Mw 8 Mandi Earthquake Scenario: Multi-State Exercise and Awareness Campaign' here on Wednesday.

It was decided in the meeting that the mock drills will be held at Mohali, Panchkula, Chandigarh and Shimla at various locations like the bus stand, markets, colleges, schools, administrative offices, railway station etc. The Indian Army, Air Force will be requested to send teams of observers at various venues for conducting an independent third party audit of the mock drills.

Eminent personalities from entertainment industries and the sports world will be associated with the mock drills and the media campaign. Cricketer Yuvraj Singh is the goodwill ambassador of the campaign.

Briefing the media, V K Duggal, former Home Secretary, GOI, and nodal incharge of the project for the region said that ground work for the forthcoming mock drills was initiated many months ago in a series of meetings initiated between Vice Chairman NDMA Shashidhar Reddy and the chief ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal and the Administrator, Chandigarh. Earlier, the mega mock drill was held across the entire Nation Capital Territory of Delhi at more than 1000 locations on February 15, 2012.

It was announced in the meeting that a scenario has been developed by the NDMA and scientific experts in the field of Earthquake Engineering from IIT Bombay and IIT Madras for a hypothetical earthquake of magnitude 8 with its epicenter at Sundernagar town in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh. The extent of shaking and consequent damages had been predicted for these states and Chandigarh. The National Disaster Management Authority, along with the states of Haryana, Himachal, Punjab and UT had been working on enhancing the capacity of the people of these territories in managing various disasters in a professional manner.

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