The Earthquake images show devastation in Nepal and India. Thousands of people lost their lives and many more injured; huge financial damage to the economy of Nepal; complete collapse of important monuments and heritage structures of Nepal. In such a Scenario are we ready as a nation, as a state, or as a community for a big disaster like 7.9 earth quake?
Many Structures in India are “non-ductile “structures e.g. brick and stone masonry structures. All structures built before 1970 are also very susceptible to severe damage even in smaller shaking. To understand importance of preparedness, take a case of Haiti Earthquake of Jan, 2010 (magnitude of 7.0) & Chile Earthquake of Feb, 2010 (magnitude of 8.8). Death toll in Haiti was 2.3 lakh where as in Chile it was only a few hundreds even though intensity of the earthquake in Chile was way more than Haiti. A simple reason is that Haiti was not ready for an earthquake, while Chile had learned from its past earthquakes and implemented proper mechanism to reduce the impact. After earthquake in 1985, Chile developed stringent buildings codes addressing seismic design and implemented it be awareness and enforcement. Chile also developed nationwide awareness about earthquakes. Haiti lacked all of that.
We are reactive to situations but not proactive. When it comes to disasters, we have to be proactive as individuals, as communities and more as a country to be prepared to face them and to minimize their impact. Some simple actions could be:
Make people aware about earthquakes, its consequences and how to be prepared.
Make building codes address building performances during and after earthquakes and enforce them strictly.
Retrofit existing important structures such as hospitals, schools, emergency shelters continuous operation during seismic event.
Design all new important structures for continuous operation level.
Strengthen monuments & heritage buildings.
Improve and strengthen infrastructure.
Implement program for removal of old non repairable structures.
Setup public private partnerships to implement changes.
Earthquakes cannot be prevented, but past earthquakes data can help our structural engineers design better structures to lessen the impact of earthquakes by saving lives and ensuring continuous operation of critical facilities to ensure help after earthquakes.
For further discussion or how to improve performance of your building structure, please contact us at [email protected]
Visit us at: www.smvengineers.com
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