POST-DISASTER INVESTIGATION AND STUDIES

Objectifs UNESCO is well situated to provide guidance and coordination in post-disaster investigations. UNESCO umbrella constitutes a major added value to this kind of intervention: Facilitate the organization, coordination of post earthquake expert missions and exchange of information through the establishment of prior agreements with respect to the importation (and subsequent exportation) of portable equipment (for example, seismometers), counterpart participation, and other arrangements between UNESCO and earthquake-prone countries.

The three-thousand year-old Arg-e-Bam Citadel after the earthquake

Establishment of an information/coordination field center (a place, a person) near the earthquake site in order to provide countries anticipating dispatching a post-earthquake mission and scientists in the field information on who is active, where they are active, and what types of studies they are currently conducting. The information would be available a personal visit to the field center, by telephone, or on the Web. Publish definitive, comprehensive, and standardized reports on the effects of the earthquakes, the causes of the damage, and recommendations to prevent future losses. Exploit the data, results, and recommendations to influence social behaviour and public policy through the publication of reports and organization of a meeting (1-3 years after the event) in the affected country. The meeting would be held only upon a request from an affected country and would target decision-makers and the public at large.

After Bam earthquake , Iran, December 2003 (Texte disponible en français)

The alliance
Iran highly vulnerable to earthquakes
A brutal wake-up call
It is not the bullet that kills
Moving disaster prevention up the public agenda

On 26 December 2003 at 5:26 am local time, a devastating earthquake killed more than a quarter of Bam’s 100,000 inhabitants, most of them in their beds. A further 15,000 or more were injured. Close to 20,000 of the city’s 33,000 students perished, along with one in five of Bam’s 5,400 teachers. Tens of thousands were left homeless and up to 6,000 children were orphaned.

Measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale, the earthquake destroyed up to 80% of the historic part of the city and extensively damaged the three-thousand year-old Arg-e-Bam (Bam Citadel), the largest earthen structure in the world. Both the city’s hospitals collapsed and 85% of homes, schools, shops, medical and administrative buildings in the city and surrounding villages were flattened.

The mission worked closely with the International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES), set up in Tehran by UNESCO in 1990, to establish an. An alliance would be formed immediately after the earthquake by in the aftermath of the earthquake between UNESCO, the IIEES, UNDP and United Nations Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction to which UNESCO belongs.

The IIEES and the Iranian authorities welcomed offers from international experts and delegations to examine the damage caused by the earthquake, including from a group of American-Iranian seismology engineers.

The alliance

In February, the alliance noted with regret ‘the inertia and lack of effective action in enforcing building codes in Iran, as well as in other countries’.

In the medium term, the alliance will be publishing a report on the lessons learned from the Bam earthquake to reduce future losses in similar cases. It suggests developing a prototype school and hospital using advanced technology like base isolation, which would be adapted to the local culture, traditional architectural fabric and urban morphology of Bam. The alliance will be contributing to the restoration of the Arg-e-Bam citadel and other heritage in the historic city.

In the longer term, the alliance will support the IIEES proposal to beprovidinge the Iran National Seismological Network with mobile seismological observation equipment and conduct seismic hazard zonation and microzonation studies for the most vulnerable inhabited areas.  Annual courses on Aseismic dDesign and cConstruction will be run by the IIEES for countries in the region. It will also foster greater application of both traditional and new building technologies in cities and rural zones at risk. A geotechnical microzonation project devoted to major cities will also be implemented, as will a seismotectonic project encompassing detailed investigation of active faults in the high hazard zones.  A joint pilot project will be launched to integrate earthquake risk prevention in educational programmes at all levels.

The alliance expects to present a report on the aforementioned projects and others to the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe (Japan) in January 2005.

Iran highly vulnerable to earthquakes

Iran is one of several countries which are highly exposed to earthquakes.  Unfortunately, Iran’s own vulnerability to earthquakes – and other natural disasters – is growing, the result of population growth, relentless urbanization, industrialization, alteration of the natural environment, climate change, vulnerable dwellings and lifelinelifeline ‘ infrastructure’ providing such services as energy and water.

There are no known records of Bam ever having experienced an earthquake before but the city is located in an active seismic zone in South-east Iran, the Gowk fault system. Four major earthquakes have struck the region in recent years: the Golbaf earthquake of 11 June 1981 (6.6 on the Richter scale), the Sirch earthquake of 28 July 1981 (7.0), the South Golbaf earthquake of 20 November 1989 (5.6) and the North Golbak earthquake of 14 March 1998 (6.6).

The Bam earthquake is likely to cripple Iran’s economic growth for the near future, with investment funds being partially consumed by reconstruction efforts. Algeria is still today recovering from the earthquake that struck the province of Boumerdes in May 2003 and which continues to provoke severe aftershocks.

A brutal wake-up call

Every year, the Earth is shaken by half a million earthquakes, the great majority of which are so small as to be detectable only by a seisometer seismometer. A potentially headline-grabbing earthquake occurs once or twice a week and mega-earthquakes – those measuring in excess of 8 on the Richter scale – only once or twice a year.

Although earthquakes can happen anywhere, the most destructive ones occur on the edges of the world’s tectonic plates. Stress accumulates over time until the Earth’s crust snaps under the pressure, radiating energy in the form of push and shake waves. It is the latter which do the most damage, causing buildings and bridges to sway perilously or even collapse.

Over the past 50 years, engineers and seismologists have acquired first-hand knowledge and know-how which can save lives if acted upon by politicians and other decision-makers.  Seismological observation networks and systems give us a better understanding of the distribution in time and space of earthquake hazards and of their intensity.  We know from these data, for example, that an earthquake can make a region more vulnerable to future shocks.   The 1999 Izmit earthquake in Turkey accentuated the stress on the North Anatolian Fault, increasing the risk of a second major earthquake within the next decade or two.

That is not to say that seismological data act as a crystal ball.   Earthquake prediction still eludes us.   But governments can use the data to limit risk, such as by ensuring that strict building codes are respected and by organizing training and awareness-building campaigns for children and adults, and by putting in place emergency evacuation procedures.

The Bam tragedy has come as a brutal wake-up call for the millions of people living in earthquake-prone cities like Istanbul, Tehran, Manila, Mumbai, Santiago, San Francisco, Cairo and Tokyo, among others.  If we take the example of Tokyo, which has the dubious distinction of lying on as many as four active faults, it has been 80 years since the last major earthquake struck and there is a fairly big probability of another one striking the megacity within our lifetime.  The Government and population of Japan have gone to great lengths to prepare for the next ‘big shake’ but will this be enough to avoid widespread human and economic loss?

It is not the bullet that kills Natural phenomena do not automatically have to spell disaster. It is human construction which is the primary agent of earthquake disasters.   In other words, ‘it is not the bullet that kills but the hole’. Earthquakes themselves do not kill; it was the collapse of buildings teetering on shaky foundations that was the main cause of death in Bam, Boumerdes and, most recently, Al Hocima in Morocco. Today, there is more scientific knowledge and technical know-how than ever before for anticipating the potential effects of an earthquake before it strikes.   The survival story of the 40-storey Marriott Hotel – left structurally intact after an earthquake measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale devastated San Francisco (USA) the day the hotel opened in 1989 – speaks volumes for the sophistication of modern engineering. Of all the global environmental issues, earthquakes and other natural hazards present the most manageable of situations: the risks of these are the most readily identified, effective mitigation measures do exist and the benefits of reducing vulnerability greatly outweigh the costs.  But the disastrous effects of natural phenomena will only be mastered once disaster preparedness moves up the public agenda.

Moving disaster prevention up the public agenda

For further information: b.rouhban@unesco.org   or tehran@unesco.org