• Delhi
• Tibetan Community in Dharamsala
• Pakistan
• Tsunami

• Kathmandu (NSET)

• Central Asia
• Central Asia and Caucasus Region
• GESI
• Gujarat
• Quito Retrofit Schools
• Quito Risk Management
• RADIUS

Avoiding Repetition of the 1988 Armenian and the 1995 Sakhalin Disasters

Background

On October 22-25, 1996, more than fifty experts on seismology, earthquake-resistant design and emergency response from Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Kenya, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States met in Almaty, Kazakstan to consider strategies for urban earthquake risk management in Central Asia. This was the first meeting of this kind and the first gathering of the Central Asian participants in more than 5 years.

Concern that a major earthquake near a capital city of a Central Asian republic could repeat the tragedies that befell Armenia in 1988 and Sakhalin in 1995 motivated the workshop:

• The Spitak, Armenia earthquake occurred on December 7, 1988 at 11:41 AM. The earthquake measured a moment magnitude of 6.8, and occurred 32 kilometers from Armenia's second largest city, Leninakan, and within 9 kilometers of the city of Spitak. Of the 700,000 people affected by the earthquake, over 25,000 were killed and 31,000 were injured. The majority of the residents of Spitak died. Due to the widespread collapse of schools and the fact that school was in session when the earthquake struck, more children than adults perished.

• The Sakhalin earthquake occurred on May 28, 1995 at 1:04 AM, beneath the Russian Pacific coastal island of Sakhalin. The earthquake, having a moment magnitude of 7.6, has been called the most devastating tremor in Russian history. The northern Sakhalin city of Neftegorsk was almost completely destroyed. The death toll was over 60% of the city's residents: 1,825 out of a population of 3,000.

During the workshop, the delegates reviewed the factors contributing to the Armenian tragedy, discussed current earthquake risk reduction programs in the United States, and summarized the earthquake risk of the capital cities of the Central Asian republics. Finally, they committed themselves to three actions that must be taken immediately to reduce the urban earthquake risk in Central Asia to an acceptable level.

Findings

1. There is a high probability that a severe earthquake will occur near the capital of one or more of the Central Asian Republics within the next 20 years, with consequences as devastating as or worse than those witnessed in Leninakan, Armenia in 1988.

2. Such an earthquake will produce, in the nearby capital city, ground shaking equal to that experienced in Leninakan, namely, intensity IX on the MSK scale. The MSK scale classifies the effects of earthquakes on nature and man-made structures from a level of I (indicating no effects) to a level of XII (indicating total destruction).

3. Based on world-wide experience in developing countries, it is estimated that ground shaking of an intensity level of IX will result in a fatality rate of at least 5% of the exposed population and an injury rate of 20%. (In Leninakan, the fatality rate was about 5%, but in Sakhalin it was about 60%.) For a city the size of Almaty, this would mean approximately 75,000 deaths and 300,000 injuries. The estimated consequences for all the Central Asian capitals are summarized in the following table:

Capital City	Population (millions)	Estimated deaths (thousands)	Estimated Injuries (thousands)
Almaty	1.5	75	300
Ashkabad	0.7	35	140
Bishkek	0.8	40	160
Dushanbe	0.6	30	120
Tashkent	2.7	135	540

4. More than one-half of all residential buildings in the Central Asian capitals would likely collapse or be damaged beyond repair if exposed to an MSK IX level of shaking. This means that a severe earthquake near a capital would cause, in addition to the deaths and injuries already mentioned, tremendous physical destruction of the city, with consequent inconvenience and economic disruption.

Resolutions

The delegates were stunned by the immensity of the earthquake risk facing the Central Asian capital cities, and, therefore, committed themselves to the following three actions:

1. The Central Asian delegates planned to urge their governments, despite the tremendous challenges facing the Central Asian republics during this transitional period, to raise the importance currently placed on addressing the earthquake safety of schools, day-care centers, hospitals, emergency response agencies, and critical lifelines. The very future of Central Asia is dependent on the integrity and continued functioning of these facilities.

2. The delegates will seek to initiate cooperative projects with the international communities in each of the capital cities in which joint Central Asian and international teams of engineers would design and implement retrofit measureOBs for facilities critical to these communities. This work might be financed by international organizations and would result in a cadre of well-trained local engineers, capable of pursuing similar projects on their own in the future.

3. The delegates created a Joint Central Asian Urban Earthquake Risk Management Working Group, consisting of the heads of the delegations of the five republics and foreign experts. The group's purpose was to promote urban earthquake risk management throughout Central Asia, by carrying on such activities as:
   • improve the exchange of information among the Central Asian republics and with external organizations
   • train professionals, especially students
   • contribute to the creation of new legislation that governs earthquake safety
   • raise public awareness of earthquake risk
   • rehabilitate residential construction to a minimum level of seismic safety
   • establish a strong-motion network of five digital stations in each capital with uniform data processing, common instrumentation, and free data exchange