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Monday, February 17, 2025

T&T existing along same fault line as hapless Haiti

by

20100301

?In this penul­ti­mate spe­cial re­port on Dis­as­ter in T&T, are you pre­pared?

Ira Math­ur ex­am­ines how the State's en­act­ment of a build­ing code can save tens of thou­sands of lives, in the event of a ma­jor dis­as­ter. "My col­leagues and I at the Seis­mic Cen­tre have all been say­ing, for the last five or six years, cer­tain­ly since we got that on-land event (earth­quake in Trinidad) in 2004, that we should see that as a wake-up call... "We should have wok­en up al­ready," says Dr Richard Robert­son, Di­rec­tor of the Seis­mic Re­search Cen­tre, UWI. With ex­tra­or­di­nary pre­science, this Trinidad Guardian and CNC3 spe­cial re­port se­ries has co­in­cid­ed with one of the dead­liest earth­quakes on earth in a cen­tu­ry which struck Chile with a mag­ni­tude of 8.8. Al­though the death toll there has risen to well over 700, it is nowhere near Haiti's, es­ti­mat­ed at a cat­a­stroph­ic 300,000. And this is de­spite the fact that Chile's earth­quake was 100 times more pow­er­ful than the 7.0 mag­ni­tude one that hit Haiti.

This dis­crep­an­cy is at­trib­uted large­ly to Chile's strict­ly-en­forced build­ing code and metic­u­lous dis­as­ter-pre­pared­ness, as op­posed to the col­lapse of most of Haiti's struc­tures, which were struc­tural­ly un­sound. The Chilean Gov­ern­ment has on­ly re­luc­tant­ly opened the door to for­eign aid, with its Pres­i­dent Michelle Bachelet de­clar­ing: "We gen­er­al­ly don't ask for help." It will be ut­ter­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble if T&T fails to learn the lessons so trag­i­cal­ly thrust on our re­gion, es­pe­cial­ly as we live along the same fault line as Haiti's. It is pos­si­ble to avoid the deaths and dev­as­ta­tion of Haiti, and the fi­nan­cial dev­as­ta­tion hur­ri­canes like Ivan wreaked on Grena­da. What ac­counts for the dif­fer­ence? A build­ing code. Dr Richard Clarke, lec­tur­er in the En­gi­neer­ing De­part­ment at UWI, says if an earth­quake of the mag­ni­tude of 8.0 and above takes place here, "90 per cent of our homes will be de­stroyed" and deaths and in­juries will run in­to "at least 30,000," with as many in­juries. Any plan for a large-scale dis­as­ter here de­pends on the way we build our homes and oth­er build­ings.

First­ly, giv­en that 90 per cent of T&T's hous­ing stock was built with­out a code, these will al­so be the in­stru­ments of death and in­juries, as they will col­lapse. Sec­ond­ly, they can­not pro­tect us from the ef­fects of a hur­ri­cane, forc­ing the Gov­ern­ment to plan for mass evac­u­a­tions and shel­ter pro­vi­sion. CNC3's ran­dom sur­veys, how­ev­er, have apt­ly demon­strat­ed that most peo­ple don't know what to do or where to go in the event of such a dis­as­ter, which al­most guar­an­tees ab­solute chaos if and when it hits. The ex­perts are wor­ried about Gov­ern­ment's com­pla­cen­cy re­gard­ing en­act­ing a build­ing code which ex­ists. The T&T Small Build­ing Code, cre­at­ed by the Board of En­gi­neer­ing, was ap­proved by the Bu­reau of Stan­dards in 2006. How­ev­er, Clarke laments that since the Build­ing Guide at the Bu­reau of Stan­dards is "not manda­to­ry," it can­not be en­forced. Col Ma­hen­dra Math­ur, for­mer di­rec­tor of NE­MA, said: "In Japan, the build­ing codes are the best in the world. Cal­i­for­nia is a close sec­ond. But it's not the codes that save the build­ings; it's en­sur­ing that they are fol­lowed. "It's im­por­tant we have build­ing in­spec­tors who go out and in­spect the build­ings."

Clarke said sim­i­lar so­lu­tions were ap­plic­a­ble to the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects of both hur­ri­canes and earth­quakes. If we pre­vent build­ings from be­ing de­stroyed, we save lives and bil­lions of dol­lars in the af­ter­math of a dis­as­ter. Col Math­ur adds that peo­ple who have al­ready built homes must make it a pri­or­i­ty to make them earth­quake and hur­ri­cane-re­sis­tant. "The cost of retro­fitting is a frac­tion, com­pared to the cost which peo­ple will pay with their lives and in dam­age," he said.

In or­der to mit­i­gate a Haiti, a "rub­ble in wait­ing"-type dis­as­ter, Mark Fran­cois, a struc­tur­al en­gi­neer, sug­gests the fol­low­ing steps as a mat­ter of ur­gency:

�2 En­act­ment of a build­ing code.

�2 Manda­to­ry reg­is­tra­tion of en­gi­neers prac­tis­ing in T&T.

�2 Es­tab­lish­ment of con­trac­tor cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and reg­is­tra­tion leg­is­la­tion.

�2 Retro­fitting of "es­sen­tial build­ings" (such as hos­pi­tals, schools, shel­ters, po­lice sta­tions, army head­quar­ters, fire ser­vices) to meet the high­est stan­dards.

�2 Large-scale retro­fitting pro­gramme, in­clud­ing pub­lic and pri­vate build­ings, that could pre­vent a nat­ur­al event from be­com­ing a na­tion­al dis­as­ter.

�2 Es­tab­lish­ment of a gov­ern­ment-sup­port­ed cam­paign with the aim of pro­mot­ing retro­fitting of low­er and mid­dle in­come homes via tax in­cen­tives, for ex­am­ple.

Fran­cois added:

"While there is an act for the reg­is­tra­tion of en­gi­neers, there is no law that re­quires any­one en­gi­neer­ing a build­ing to be reg­is­tered with the Board of En­gi­neer­ing." He main­tained that the "re­quire­ments for reg­is­tra­tion need­ed to be more strin­gent." Sim­i­lar­ly, Fran­cois said it was "im­per­a­tive that some form of con­trac­tor reg­is­tra­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is in­tro­duced to min­imise cas­es of com­plaints by cit­i­zens that they have been 'ripped-off'." The so­cial con­tract re­quires that the fore­most re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of any func­tion­ing state to its cit­i­zens is en­sur­ing their safe­ty. If the cat­a­stro­phe that would hit T&T–if ei­ther a dev­as­tat­ing hur­ri­cane or an earth­quake (and it is not­ed that over the last three years Haiti has suf­fered both) oc­curred here–the State, by its own ad­mis­sion (through the of­fices of the ODPM and rel­e­vant agen­cies), would not be able to en­sure cit­i­zens were pro­tect­ed from se­ri­ous in­jury and death.

While it was true that the Gov­ern­ment could not pre­vent the dis­as­ters, there is, for ex­am­ple, in the San Fran­cis­co Bay quake (Cal­i­for­nia, 1989), and now in Chile that a com­bi­na­tion of knowl­edge, time­ly warn­ing, im­ple­men­ta­tion of pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures, de­tailed emer­gency plan­ning for and af­ter the event, and com­pre­hen­sive ed­u­ca­tion of cit­i­zens saved hun­dreds of thou­sands of lives and bil­lions of dol­lars of loss. The time to act is now. Tonight on the 7 o'clock CNC3 news­cast and to­mor­row in de­tail, in the Trinidad Guardian, Ira Math­ur clos­es this sev­en-part se­ries of Dis­as­ter in T&T.


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