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Gujarat
Earthquake Risk Management: A Crucial
Ingredient in Reducing Death, Injury, and Economic Disruption by Haresh C.
Shah
Obayashi Professor of Engineering, Emeritus
Stanford University
Chairman of the Board, World Seismic Safety Initiative (WSSI)
Member of the Board of Directors, Risk Management Solutions, Inc.
Chairman of the Board, R. M. Software, Inc. India.
The Catastrophic earthquake of January 26, 2001 in
Gujarat has once again reminded the world community of the importance of planning and
pre-earthquake preparedness to mitigate the effects of such events. It is obvious that
from citizen's awareness, to building practices to local, state and central government's
planning has been less than desirable in the case of this tragic event. At the dawn of
this new century, it is not necessary from the technical and scientific point of view to
see such massive death and destruction. Over the past two years, we have seen this type of
depressing scenario repeat itself in Turkey, Greece, Taiwan, San Salvador, and now in
India. The challenge that faces the world community is to implement the technical and
scientific knowledge about earthquakes and their effects to all aspects of community
development, community building, and creating safe living environment. It seems that the
social, political, and economic forces have a lot to do before a safe earthquake resistant
urban and rural community can be a reality.
California is the "Earthquake Country". Hundreds of active earthquake faults
have been identified over the past few decades that could generate earthquakes affecting
major population centers in the state. The history of California is full of major
earthquake stories. The great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 on the San Andreas Fault
was the watershed event that started almost a hundred years of research and development
towards building safer communities. Today, earthquake safety is considered in all aspects
of planning, building, operating business, and in developing a safe and sustainable living
environment in California. It is well accepted amongst California citizens that
earthquakes do not kill people, it is unsafe construction of buildings and infrastructure
as well as uncontrolled planning, that kills people as a result of earthquakes. Creation
of an earthquake resistant community demands a shared responsibility between all the
stakeholders. Citizens, corporations, and governments must take their share of
responsibility in building a safe community. Not that California has "solved"
all their problems related to earthquake safety, but it would be interesting to know how
the problem of earthquake safety is addressed in this state. In a 1995 study by Risk
Management Solutions, Inc. of California, they estimated that a repeat of 1906 earthquake
in San Francisco (Surface Wave magnitude of 8.3) would create the following effects in the
San Francisco Bay Area (this region includes the famous Silicon Valley).
· 3,000 to 8,000 deaths
· 8,000 to 18,000 hospitalized injuries
· $65 to $85 billion loss to commercial/industrial property,
inventories, and equipment.
· $60 to $80 billion loss to residential property and contents.
· $30 billion loss due to business interruption.
· $10 to $17 billion loss to lifelines (electrical, water, telephone,
transportation, etc.)
· $3 to $6 billion loss due to general liabilities.
· $1 to $3 billion loss due to workers compensation, life insurance,
claims, and medical expenses. And finally,
· Less than one billion loss for toxic waste clean up cost.
The above numbers add up to a total loss of between $170 to $225 billion in economic
losses. Realizing that there are many uncertainties in developing these estimates, it is
important to note that they are too big and should be unacceptable to any society.
However, it should also be realized that they are considerably less than what they could
be if California had not taken a multi pronged approach in mitigating the effects of
future earthquakes. What are the main ingredients of this risk management approach? The
main ingredients include a shared responsibility and shared efforts to reduce the impact
of future earthquakes.
· Public education and awareness. The first and foremost strategy in
managing earthquake risk is the informed public. Every school in the state informs the
students about earthquake risk. There are regular earthquake drills in schools so those
children know what to do if there is an earthquake. These school children talk to their
parents about what they have learned about earthquakes and how to protect themselves if an
earthquake occurs. There are brochures sent out by the local utilities to all the home
owners about the earthquake risk in the region and what to do to protect themselves, their
families, and their property before, during, and after an earthquake.
· Development of state of the art building standards and processes to
implement these standards for all construction. Design, construction, and inspection of
all new buildings and infrastructure must be according to the existing code requirements.
Rules to deal with existing construction and to bring them to life safety standards have
also been implemented in most urban communities of California.
· Facilites such as schools, hospitals, police stations, fire stations,
which are critical for response and recovery after an earthquake must be built to more
stringent standards with special provisions for inspection and checking during
construction process.
· Local, State, and Federal government's role in implementing
regulations, providing guidance and limitations on land use, and in general raising the
awareness of the population.
· Federal Emergency Management Agency and State agencies providing
information and assistance on pre-earthquake mitigation strategies and post earthquake
assistance in response and recovery phases.
· Corporations taking responsibilities for providing a safe work
environment for their workers through corporate earthquake risk management studies. These
studies provide an understanding of the impact of various levels of earthquakes to their
business and to their people. Pre-earthquake loss mitigation strategies for corporations
involve engineering strengthening their facilities and/or buying earthquake insurance and
business interruption insurance.
· Availability of earthquake insurance to all the residential and
commercial property holders and to corporations forms one of the most important strategies
for managing earthquake risk.
Earthquakes are low probability but high consequence events. Just because they do not
occur every year does not mean that they do not wreck havoc to people, businesses, and
governments. Sometimes, their impact could be so large that the effects are felt for many
years after the earthquake to the societies and to governments. This is especially true to
developing nations where the economies are fragile and a large disruption like the event
in Gujarat could set the region, the state and the country back by several years.
I have been asked by many countries to help them develop plans for managing their
earthquake risk. The research work conducted by people like me does contribute to the
scientific and engineering know how towards mitigating the effects of future earthquakes.
However, there is a wide gap between existing knowledge and its implementation. This is
especially true in developing world. None of the simple things that we in California or
Japan take for granted are implemented in many parts of the world. The recent event in
Gujarat is not an exception; it is unfortunately the rule. California type of experience
is more of an exception. Disasters similar or greater than the Gujarat event are just
waiting to happen. Each community needs to identify the weak link in their pre-earthquake
planning as a first step towards building an "earthquake resistant community".
Each society owes it to their citizens to strengthen these weak links. The citizens should
demand this from their leaders and expect no less. Leadership requires taking steps to
mitigate the effects of large future earthquakes and not just responding to them after
death and destruction has already taken place.
published in The Economic Times of India and the
Times of India
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