Izmit: a disaster waiting to happen in many Third World
cities
Released: 1999
In developing countries, nine out of 10 earthquake-threatened
cities are no better prepared to survive a major earthquake
than Izmit, Turkey.
That is the conclusion of a just-completed survey of earthquake
experts in 20 cities around the world commissioned by the United
Nations and conducted by GeoHazards International (GHI), a Palo
Alto-based nonprofit organization established to reduce death
and suffering caused by earthquakes in the world's most vulnerable
communities.
The 7.4 magnitude quake that struck western Turkey on Aug.
17 killed at least 12,000 people and left 200,000 homeless.
"When a passenger airliner crashes, at the same time that people
are tending to victims, others are inspecting the remainder
of the fleet," says GHI President Brian E. Tucker. "Sometimes
the fleet is grounded until the causes of the disaster are identified
and remedied. Here the 'fleet' is the world's large cities built
near faults capable of generating large earthquakes. We should
inspect these cities for the conditions that existed at Izmit
and fix the problems, the easiest and deadliest first."
According to Tucker, the results of the GHI survey are consistent
with other recent assessments of urban earthquake risk in developing
countries. The results also imply that comparable disasters
will certainly occur in other cities around the world unless
preventative action is taken. Furthermore, the studies make
it clear that shortsightedness and lack of information, rather
than cost, are the major barriers to improved seismic safety,
Tucker adds.
"Few people realize how affordable earthquake safety measures
are," says Amod Dixit, executive director of the National Society
of Earthquake Technology - Nepal (NSET), which has been working
with GHI since 1993 on improving Kathmandu's earthquake safety.
"Our work has shown that building safe structures in Nepal increases
construction costs by less than 3 percent in most cases, and
significant increases in safety can be achieved at virtually
no additional cost."
Haresh Shah, professor emeritus of Stanford's Civil Engineering
Department and a member of the Board of Trustees of GHI, uses
the case of Nepal, which is implementing an earthquake risk-management
action plan and is poised to adopt its first-ever seismic building
code, as an illustration that the devastating losses experienced
in the Turkish earthquake are not necessary.
"If existing methods of emergency response planning, urban
planning, retrofitting of existing structures and construction
of new buildings are aggressively applied, the magnitude of
the impending tragedy could be greatly reduced," Shah says.
"Thousands of deaths can be avoided."
The GHI survey - undertaken as part of a United Nations seismic
safety project - interviewed specialists in eight Asian, six
South American, four European and two African cities about their
city's earthquake risk and risk management practices. It found
that three-quarters of the cities have building codes, but less
than half enforce their code. Further, only half of the 20 cities
had even a minimal emergency response capability, while even
fewer had both an emergency response plan and regular drills
or actual experience using the plan. Only one city in 10 reported
a good, well-enforced building code and a good, well-rehearsed
emergency response plan.
According to Tucker, cities in developing countries are at
particular risk of earthquakes, and that risk is increasing.
In this century, four out of every five deaths caused by earthquakes
occurred in developing countries. Of the people living in earthquake-threatened
cities in 1950, two out of every three were in developing countries.
In the year 2000, nine out of every 10 will be in developing
countries.
The 1988 Armenian earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake
in Northern California were nearly equivalent in their magnitudes
and in the number of people in the affected regions, but the
results were far different - 63 people died in California while
at least 25,000 died in Armenia.
Three years ago, GHI organized a NATO Workshop in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
At that time the experts who attended the meeting determined
that half of the six million people living in the capital cities
of the five Central Asian Republics occupied buildings that
were extremely vulnerable to collapse during earthquakes. They
estimated that a repeat of large historical earthquakes could
produce human death tolls ranging from 30,000 to 135,000 per
event and seriously injure between 120,000 to 540,000 people.
Last year, a collaborative study between GHI and Nepalese earthquake
experts concluded that the next major earthquake near Kathmandu
could kill 40,000 people, seriously injure 100,000 and leave
even more homeless.
GHI's Carlos Villacis, working with leading Latin American
earthquake experts, has come up with similar estimates for Tijuana,
Mexico, Antofagasta, Chile and Guayaquil, Ecuador as a result
of the UN project. In the event of a large quake, they have
calculated that Tijuana could suffer 18,000 deaths and 37,000
serious injuries; Antofagasta could sustain 3,000 deaths and
7,000 serious injuries; and Guayaquil could have 26,000 deaths
and 53,000 serious injuries.
"It is important to realize that even the most well-drilled
emergency response team, using the best emergency response plan,
would have been overwhelmed with the situation - some 40,000
buried souls ! - that faced the authorities in Turkey," said
Shirley Mattingly, a GHI collaborator and former regional director
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "There is no single
'silver bullet' in the earthquake preparedness business. Threatened
communities must have good and well-enforced building codes,
land use plans, and emergency response plans, as well as informed
leaders and an aware public that is intolerant of corruption."
by David F. Salisbury
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For further information contact:
Brian E. Tucker
GeoHazards International
(650) 614-9050
tucker@geohaz.org
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