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A VOICE FROM CARIACO
 GeoHazards
International (GHI) was established in 1991 as a nonprofit organization
to reduce death and injury caused by earthquakes in the world's
most vulnerable communities. Since then, we have developed
and applied methods that will save lives in countries around
the world.
The story behind the photograph on this page
sums up why GHI exists. It depicts the ruins of one of
the seven schools in Cariaco, Venezuela, that collapsed in an
earthquake in July 1997, killing a total of 45 children.
As we were taking this photograph, a few weeks after the earthquake,
a local man approached us and told us that immediately after
the earthquake struck, he ran to the school to help the victims.
He located his nephew, who was a student at the school and could
be heard calling to his uncle from under the rubble. Despite
his pleas, the man was not allowed by local police to dig for
his nephew and other trapped children because search-and-rescue
professionals were supposedly on the way. They were, in
fact, but they arrived the next day—far too late to save the
boy or his classmates.
This story is particularly poignant for GHI, because two years
before this earthquake, using our own funding, we had prepared
a plan with Venezuelans on how to reduce the earthquake risk
of four Venezuelan cities, including Cariaco. This plan
was presented to various local government agencies, but the
modest funds required to implement it were never approved.
The decision makers were insufficiently aware of the risk and
the possibility to manage it.
There is no guarantee that, had our plan been implemented,
it would have saved those children. But it might have!
Parents could have been made aware of their risk, emergency
workers trained, and the most vulnerable schools strengthened—steps
that are routine in industrialized countries and that are being
taken today, in response to successful GHI initiatives, in Nepal,
Ecuador, Mexico, Chile, Indonesia, China, and Central Asia.
Brian Tucker
President, GeoHazards International |
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