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Retrofit in Tibetan Exile Community in Dharamsala, India
Funded by the Flora Family Foundation and by GHI's own resources, a team from GHI conducted
an initial assessment of earthquake vulnerabilities facing the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, India.
From September 2-5, 2006 the team visited Upper Dharamsala (McLeod Ganj, the Central Tibetan
Administration area, Forsyth Ganj, and Bhagsunag) and focused on two groups of buildings with
cultural importance, the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives campus and the Tsuglag Khang (Main Temple)
complex. These buildings contain collections of significant manuscripts, bronzes, and thangkas
(scroll paintings) brought out of Tibet by refugees. Team members also observed the geology, the
seismic vulnerability of other buildings important to the community, and construction practices in
Upper Dharamsala.
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Bill Holmes assesses seismic vulnerabilities of a building in the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala. |
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Attention is drawn to poor connections between buildings too closely built. |
Observations and conclusions of the team-—comprised of GHI staff members, earthquake engineering experts
Mel Green and Bill Holmes, and geologist William Cotton-—are presented in a report (A Culture at Risk:
An Initial Assessment of Seismic Vulnerabilities in Upper Dharamsala, India), now available online at
http://www.geohaz.org/contents/news/onlinepub2.html. We are grateful to the Flora Family Foundation for
awarding GHI a grant to engage in follow-up action that will include developing actual retrofit designs.
While we are delighted to improve the earthquake-resistance of these particular structures, our primary
motivation for undertaking this project is the additional, far-reaching benefit this project affords to
raise awareness among the greater, dispersed Tibetan exile community of its earthquake risk and options to
reduce it through preparation and mitigation efforts.
Exploring an Alliance with Mercy Corps
The logic of aligning an organization that focuses on preparing communities for natural disasters
(e.g., GHI) with an organization that focuses on responding to natural and man-made disasters (e.g.,
Mercy Corps, www.mercycorps.org) to work together is compelling. We therefore asked the Flora Family
Foundation to support our exploring the feasibility of creating some form of alliance between GHI and
Mercy Corps. In June, they awarded us a generous grant for this purpose. To launch our exploration of
possibilities, long-standing GHI volunteer structural engineering Professor Carlos Ventura of the
University of British Columbia and GHI's Tom Tobin will accompany Susan Romanski, Mercy Corps' Director
of Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Risk Reduction, to Guatemala in December. Their objective
is to assess opportunities for improving local natural risk management and then to define projects
that Mercy Corps and GHI could carry out together in Guatemala.
Building Safer Schools in Pakistan
One of the most tragic aspects of the October 8, 2005 Pakistan earthquake was the disastrous performance
of schools. Over 8,000 schools were destroyed or damaged beyond repair, resulting in the death of more
than 17,000 school children and the serious injury (including amputations) of more than 20,000 other
children. Now GHI and the Aga Khan Development Network are designing a program to build local capacity
to strengthen ("retrofit") existing schools and to construct earthquake-resilient new schools in Northern
Pakistan.
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