Kusala & C.P. Rajendran

Kusala manages one of the 10 Indian seismological observatories, located on the Kerala Forest Research Institute premises at Peechi in Thrissur, receiving data on quakes anywhere on earth.Geophysicists can predict the possible direction of shock waves and advise governments on where to construct a dam, a nuclear plant and so on. "Often, warnings are ineffectual. Neither the administration nor the people take it seriously," says Rajendran. India may not be able to undertake ambitious projects like Earthscope in California where they drill to the core of the earth, "but there must be more interaction among geophysicists globally for multi-lateral information flow", he says.