Preparing for Aftershocks to the Pakistan Earthquake

Tahmed Sahib,
Thanks for a very timely and informative article. I will pay serious attention to some things we can do to prepare ourselves for this tragic phenomenon.

tahmed32 #14

`` Interesting read, although I found the linking of geographical phenomena (plate tectonics) to political phenomena (india-pakistan politics) to be a bit of a stretch. The eurasian plate and the indian plate meet straight across the middle of Pakistan, and every year the indian plate pushes a little over an inch into the eurasia. So, we do indeed live in an earthquake prone area. I just hope that all countries in this region will pay more attention to eartquake-protection measures being built into their building codes. This is important as more and more hi-rise buildings are being made. There was a news item in Dawn about the government implementing building codes in future. Lets see what comes of it, but I wouldnt hold my breath. ``

Enforcement of building codes has to be weighed against higher cost of housing and potential for corruption.

mehulkamdar #12 I looked up the website, and this certainly looks like a very promising solution to the problem of earthquakes. I think we definitely should make people aware of such technology - there is certainly going to be a demand for it after the current experience, even without government codes. Are you associated with this firm, and would they consider marketing this in the subcontinent? How appropriate would it be for subcontinent conditions (extreme heat, no central airconditioning, low income levels)???

godot: Thanks for posting the article, and for the undeserved compliment :-)

Interesting read, although I found the linking of geographical phenomena (plate tectonics) to political phenomena (india-pakistan politics) to be a bit of a stretch. The eurasian plate and the indian plate meet straight across the middle of Pakistan, and every year the indian plate pushes a little over an inch into the eurasia. So, we do indeed live in an earthquake prone area. I just hope that all countries in this region will pay more attention to eartquake-protection measures being built into their building codes. This is important as more and more hi-rise buildings are being made. There was a news item in Dawn about the government implementing building codes in future. Lets see what comes of it, but I wouldnt hold my breath.

Tauheed -

I posted the following article on another board. I`m posting it again on your board for sensible people like you...

AFTER THE QUAKE

A World Turned Upside Down
The aftershocks of Pakistan`s temblor will be felt for years.

BY RUSSELL SEITZ

When Kipling was a cub reporter in Lahore, the area struck by Saturday`s earthquake was a blank on the map separating British India from the ``Independent Khanates of Chinese Turkistan.`` Washington scarcely cared if the Victorian Empire needed a weapon of mass destruction called the Maxim gun to deter hotheads along the Northwest Frontier, for it was a long way from anywhere. Now America`s concerns are more ecumenical and acute: Pakistan`s 1998 bomb test conjoined the world`s three great monotheistic religions in a nuclear trinity (to say nothing of the polytheistic Hindus nearby, with their own nuclear saga).

There`s no predicting the outcome when a natural disaster strikes an inexperienced nuclear state bordering two others. The aftershocks may loosen Pakistan`s postcolonial grip on its wild and woolly Northern Areas, or shake its fragile truce with India in long-partitioned Kashmir. The quake rattled Pakistan`s armories, nuclear and conventional, shattered its military academy, and left some of its general staff sleeping in the streets alongside a million other traumatized citizens.

It also severed the Karakoram highway, the amazing but fragile artery linking Pakistan to its conflicted frontiers and providing western China`s only direct connection to world trade. The new North-South strategic highway runs through a landscape as unstable as the region`s politics, for the Indian subcontinent has been thrusting into the heart of Asia since the days of the dinosaurs, raising some of the highest mountains like the bow wave of a dreadnaught and garlanding them with metamorphic treasures like the sapphires of Kashmir and the rubies and lapis lazuli of Hunza and Badakhshan.

This tectonic beauty comes at a high human cost. Last December, the far edge of the Indian Plate popped open a 1,000-kilometer split in the Andaman seabed, raising the tsunami in which 300,000 perished. Now the same great plate`s 60-mile-deep keel has surged forward, nudging peaks like K-2 and Nanga Parbat a little higher, and knocking the ground out from under everyone from Kabul to Kashmir.

North of Srinagar, in India`s Vale of Kashmir, villagers blocked highways demanding aid for stricken mountain hamlets. Scientists and climbers are missing, too, for the stunning exposure of living rock on 25,000-foot peaks and the flanks of the Indus gorge make the region a geological and mountaineering Mecca.

The exaggerated verticality of northern Pakistan makes it scientifically transparent but politically opaque, with borders hard to define and harder to guard. The chaos in the quake`s aftermath has put the field in motion for fugitives of all stripes. Al Qaeda cadres and Islamist Kashmiri separatists can readily lose themselves among the flux of refugees in a region famed for discreet hospitality. It cannot have escaped Osama Bin Laden`s attention that in the 19th century the Aga Khan spent tranquil years in Hunza while internecine war made him a hunted man elsewhere in the Islamic world. Today, the Raj has evaporated in India, but in Pakistan`s Northern Areas some local notables` business cards still read ``Head of State.`` Political parties--some religious, some ethnic--have proliferated in the Punjab and the parts of southern Pakistan that share an Urdu culture with India; but in the North, men owe their first allegiance to where they were born, not to where politicians in Islamabad want borders to be.

The region`s isolation in the months to come could erode Pakistan`s often-resented efforts to integrate the linguistically and ethnically distinct populations of areas like Baltistan, a ``Little Tibet`` where mountains five miles high enforce local autonomy--and where the central government`s authority fades out of sight of the now-obliterated roads built to enforce it. The temblor`s timing is itself disastrous, for the north helps feed Pakistan, and harvests have been isolated from the urban markets by the wholesale destruction of infrastructure. Far away, in Karachi and Quetta, the political impact is being felt, as food prices soar despite the imposition of price controls. A month ago, polo was being played at 11,000 feet in the summer pastures of the north. Now the monsoon has combined with the quake to set slow-motion boulder-falls down the Indus Valley, with a hard freeze to follow. Only come spring will Pakistan know the true toll in areas too high for helicopters.

The Indo-European frontier was already an ethnic and religious crossroads when Alexander the Great passed through. It has seen the rise and fall of whatever gods were worshipped in the era of the proto-Hindu Mohenjo-Daro civilization, and then of Gandharan Greco-Buddhism; but only in the last few decades has the upper Indus begun to see much of the outside world. Even in four-mile-deep valleys isolated as Kipling`s not-quite-fictional ``Kaffiristan,`` Internet cafés are up and running; and this winter, un-wired teahouse firesides may be enlivened by well-armed Afghans driven across the borders of Kunar and Badakhshan by U.S. or U.S.-backed forces. Still, equating Islam on the Upper Indus with the Taliban is as inane and dangerous as representing the Ku Klux Klan as typical of American Christianity; for while hidebound Salafist mullahs may prevail in one mosque, a valley away female education may be compulsory and Ismaili merchants may come and go from around the world.

Mountains like the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush will go on rising whether borders or empires stand or fall, and the erosive force of the Indus River will sweep away whatever the angry earth throws down as the tectonic plates continue their collision. Saturday`s quake was as powerful as the one that leveled San Francisco, but one of these centuries the rafting together of the Asian and Indus plates will rock the subcontinent with quakes a hundred times stronger, as it has before. It may take a harder shock than Saturday`s to persuade the subcontinent`s capitals to recognize that, partition notwithstanding, they are in the same tectonic boat. The region`s conflicts may seem intractable, but the Earth is ever patient in its diplomacy. The civilizations of South Asia have a half-billion years` grace in which to resolve their age-old differences before the slow tectonic violence that has put fossil seashells atop Everest crumples Ceylon--unserendipitously--into the mountainous seashore of Tibet.

Mr. Seitz is a physicist in Cambridge, Mass.

There is a building technology that has been tested to withstand earthquakes measuring up to 9.5 on the RIchter scale www.thermasave.us It would be good if the governments of India, Pakistan etc use these technologies in quake prone areas in the future.

Hopefully, the sadness of the devastation would cause people to think with a long term perspective in mind after the initial phase of providing assistance to the victims of this disaster is over.

saminasha #10 ``geological planning``??

Each nation NEEDS to have an official fully operating crisis network-this is called geological planning for natural disasters.

#7 dm: Practice drills are another important aspect of emergency preparedness. In the office I worked at, we used to have regular fire drills every few months - that is the only way to train workers in hi-rises (which are coming up rapidly in the subcontinent) on the importance of remaining calm and using stairs. Schools in Pakistan and India should similarly have regular drills to protect themselves from earthquakes - I wonder how many precious young lives could have been saved in the recent earthquake where entire classroom full of children were buried under, and very few found alive.

Thanks friends for your comments. Here are some responses:

escapist #1 It is very encouraging to see people like yourself and your friend in Islamabad taking the initiative to provide assistance at this time. Another chowkie, Ijaz Gul in Islamabad, said he was sending a truckload of freshwater. Community help like this is invaluable, particularly in case of destruction at such a vast scale.

amansandhu #2 There is indeed a great need to develop and apply standards in the context of conditions in the subcontinent, and to promote public awareness of the same in case of emergencies and promotion of safety consciousness.

godot #3 I guess it is not too early to think about rebuilding.

dot-dash #4 There is indeed a need to enforce building standards. The subcontinent is located in an earthquake zone, and hi-rise buildings are sprouting up. Without a tradition of applying building standards, we face more tragedies like the one at Margalla Towers. By contrast, a simple extension to a house in the US requires filing plans with the local authorities, as well as a couple of on-site visits by the inspector during and after construction. Let us hope the Pakistan government (and indeed other governments in the subcontinent) learn the lessons of Margalla Towers- you cant build hi-rises without modern safety standards being applied.

BeeJay #5 True. That is why I emphasize that these guidelines are not a substitute for common sense, and should be applied with that in mind - thus, as you rightly point out, while instructions on elevators apply to hi-rise buildings, they do not apply to homes. The important thing is for people to become more aware of the need for emergency preparedness.

delhiwala #6 Salaams to you as well, sir. This article was prompted by a call for such guidelines on unplugged by flyhighkites who is trying to organize some such work. So hopefully this will prove to be of some use to fhk and others.

Thank you Ahmad saheb, for an informative and useful article. Very few families practise emergency drills which can save people`s lives in a real emergency. Tragedies like these remind one of the importance of preparedness.

Tahmed Sir Salam to You,

Very good article and I hope someone will notice this and introduce such like measures to teach to people in India and Pakistan.

My Mother`s family(older relatives) that lived through and lost dozens of its family members in Quetta in 1935 used to tell me similar stories. Frankly, I don`t think anything has changed in terms of dealing with Disaster Management for Desis since then.
At least in Quetta you had English Armymen who were very skillfuly organized to deal with a disaster. Maybe, Pakistan govt can study how it was managed then and learn from it.

I hope that everyone that you know is ok.

Tauheed,

Your intentions behind putting up this article are to be lauded.

The article itself could probably benefit from a little bit of customization. For example, not too many residential buildings in those parts would probably have gas furnaces, elevators, and the like installed in them.

Sincerely,
BeeJay.

here`s a reason for the mass destruction.

Most modern buildings are built to new standards esp in quake zones. However, these safety standards are rendered useless if the hosues are modified - like extensions and new balconies etc. Apparently a lot of the houses (new build) have been modified and this has caused more destruction.

In asia - pakistan, mid-east, SEAsia this is a major problem - illegeal extensions.

We can all have great expectation from new standards for construction and new safety precautions etc, but if there are illegal extensions....we see what happens......

Pakistan promises to rebuild destroyed cities
By Jo Johnson and Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad

Pakistan promised on Wednesday to build new cities to replace those destroyed by last week`s earthquake, a pledge that will put further strain on the public finances as the country deals with its worst natural disaster. “What we are planning to do is, perhaps, build new cities where they`ve been damaged rather than just rebuild what we had before,” Shaukat Aziz, the prime minister, said after meeting Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, in Islamabad. “So we are going to build new cities and where people own titles of land we`ll swap them with new land in the same vicinity in an organised way,” he said.

Pakistan has so far received pledges of international aid of $350m (€291m, £200m), including $50m from the US, towards a reconstruction bill expected to be in the billions of dollars. On Wednesday night, in his first televised speech since Saturday, President Pervez Musharraf thanked the international community for sending aid. The devastation in Kashmir and part of North-West

Frontier Province is immense, with 4m people affected and many roads, schools and hospitals destroyed. But Pakistan`s business centres, as well as ports, airports, factories, power plants and refineries, have been largely spared.

Economists say Pakistan`s public finances are in better shape to deal with a natural disaster of this scale than at any time over the past two decades, with the budget deficit down to about 4 per cent of GDP and public debt about 60 per cent. “The public finances are going to be stretched but not overwhelmed,” said Sakib Sherani, an economist at ABN AMRO in Islamabad.

The country ran fiscal deficits that averaged 7.5 per cent of GDP throughout the 1980s and 1990s, which caused public debt to top 100 per cent in 1999, the year Gen Musharraf seized power. The government is unlikely to be able to keep to its target of a budget deficit of 3.8 per cent of GDP set for the year to June 30 2006 without skimping on reconstruction, eating into other budget lines or taking a political risk in staggering the expenditure over several years, economists say.

ABN AMRO predicts a deficit of 4.1-4.3 per cent but insists it is still “too early to make a definitive assessment” of the earthquake`s impact. The Dutch bank has trimmed its growth forecast to 6-6.5 per cent from 6.3-6.7 per cent. Pakistan`s economy grew more than 8 per cent last year. Finance ministry officials say Pakistan-controlled Kashmir accounts for less that 5 per cent of the country`s economic output. Karachi, the main financial centre, lies more than 1,000km to the south of the earthquake`s epicentre.

Amid concerns over the cost of reconstruction, the KSE-100 index of the Karachi stock exchange rose almost 2 per cent on Wednesday on expectations of demand for cement, steel, fuel and power.

“These are the sectors where demand would rise if reconstruction gathers momentum,” said one Karachi trader. Imports of construction materials will be a drag on GDP growth that economists say will be only partially offset by higher public spending.

Tauheed,
I remember reading somewhere that if you are suddenly caught in an earthquake indoors the best place to take cover is below a door since there is a strong beam above a doorway and it wont come crashing down. A child in Pakistan was saved because he had the good sense to hide below a school desk.
Quake prone countries like India and Pakistan should teach safety measures to children in schools and adults through tv, radio etc. If school children had known what to do many lives could have been saved.