• Recently, tremors have been felt in Meghalaya and in the region around Joshimath and Chamoli in Uttarakhand.
• Geologists have also warned of a probable massive earthquake in the Himalayan state.
• Nearly 58 % of the Indian landmass is vulnerable to earthquakes.
• Court orders and state government audits for safety assessment of vulnerable buildings alone cannot adequately prepare Indian cities for earthquakes.

Issues with India’s policy earthquake preparedness

• It ignores the buildings that were constructed before National Building Codes were published in 1962.
• Such buildings form a large part of Indian cities.  
• It assumes infallibility in the processes of enforcement — relying only on penalization and illegalities.
• It treats earthquakes as a problem of individual buildings as if they exist and behave in complete isolation from their urban context.
• Buildings exist in clusters and in the event of an earthquake, behave as a system.
• They collapse on nearby buildings and on the abutting streets, damaging buildings that might have otherwise survived and blocking evacuation routes.

Suggestions

• Earthquake preparedness in city infrastructure: Indian’s earthquake preparedness needs to act at the scale of building details as well as that of cities.
• It must think about it in the realm of policy and not just legal enforcement.

Need for comprehensive policy:

• At the scale of building details, India needs to create a system of retrofitting existing structures and enforcing seismic codes with more efficiency.

Measures to include in India’s earthquake policy:

• Retrofitting Buildings to Seismic Codes:
• Aim: To create a system of tax-based or development rights-based incentives for retrofitting one’s building up to seismic codes.
• Such a system of incentives will enable the growth of an industry around retrofitting and will generate a body of well-trained professionals and competent organisations.
• Better enforcement of seismic codes:
• Ensuring better enforcement of seismic codes through step such as the National Retrofitting Programme launched in 2014.
• Under the programme, the Reserve Bank of India directed banks to deny loans for any building activity that does not meet the standards of earthquake-resistant design.

Examples

• Japan: It has invested heavily in technological measures to mitigate the damage from the frequent earthquakes that it experiences.
• Skyscrapers are built with counterweights and other high-tech provisions to minimise the impact of tremors.
• Small houses are built on flexible foundations and public infrastructure is integrated with automated triggers that cut power, gas, and water lines during earthquakes.
• This has been a result of cultivating an industry around earthquake mitigation and fostering expertise.
• San Francisco: It was devastated by an earthquake in April 1906.
• San Francisco implemented policy changes similar to Japan’s.
• The next major earthquake hit in 1989, the city recorded just 63 casualties compare to more than 3,000 deaths in 1906.

Four criteria to generate earthquake vulnerability maps:

• The percentage of vulnerable structures in the area 
• The availability of evacuation routes and distances from the nearest open ground
• Density of the urban fabric; and fourth, location of nearest relief services and the efficiency with which these services can reach affected sites.
• Location of nearest relief services and the efficiency with which these services can reach affected sites.
• Example: Flood zone mapping is an exercise that has proven to be successful in terms of timely evacuation and efficient implementation.

Approach to make policy on earthquake preparedness

• Develop new innovative solutions: Some areas such as dense historic city centers which are destroyed by earthquake will still be beyond repair.
• They will require either retrofitting or revised town planning schemes. However, both options are unreliable and could be damaging to history.
• Need for political will: There is lack political will to execute policies related to earthquake rehabilitation and prevention.
• Example: After the 2001 Bhuj earthquake, the Gujarat government immediately adapted new town planning schemes that widened roads and created routes for evacuation and relief work.
• Turkish government, in denial of its own responsibility, has arrested contractors for building unsafe buildings.

Governments and policymakers ought to know better than act in a piecemeal manner. India must seize this opportunity to include earthquake preparedness in our U20 agenda and learn from the Japanese and the American delegates.