Engineering Lessons for Sikkim, India Earthquake (Magnitude-6.9)

I recently visited Sikkim, India after the 18th Sept. earthquake. The trip had a few-fold objectives, them being:

1. To understand the damage to buildings and infrastructure in the region

2. Visit the ‘School buildings’ and other institutional setups to understand the impact of this event

3. Observe the Disaster Response mechanism in place

Based on my field experiences and discussions with various people on this trip, I would like to make a few recommendations; as following:

1. Large engineering companies, universities in Gangtok, and individuals have studied Sikkim to a great extent, and their expertise should be utilized for safety and improvement of infrastructure.

2. The earthquake appears an opportunity for overall developmental improvements (access and amenities) in settlements that are urbanizing, such as worst hit Chungthang.

3. Traditional Wattle and Daub (Collq. Ekra) construction has performed well against the earthquake, and has low damage. This construction should be encouraged, and innovation in this area could yield comfortable and safer houses.

4. The damages in Chungthang have caused mental health issues to houseowners (especially who had made large investments) and counseling is an immediate need.

5. Damages in various school buildings have instilled fear/caution in children. Instead of listening to that fear, perhaps it is more prudent that opportunities are created for learning about earthquakes.

6. Sikkim is an opportunity, and can be shown as an example of collective governance, not only from the safety point of view but also development needs of the North East of Indian subcontinent.

For the detailed report refer www.quakeschool.org/files/110922SikkimEarthquake.html

By [With Acknowledgements]

Mr. Chandra Bhakuni, Structural Engineer, Quakeschool Consulting

[With sincere thanks to Manu and his SEEDS Delhi team, Mrs. Rinkoo Wadhera from local DOU unit, Mr. Prashant Pradhan and his team at Architects of Sikkim , Tshering (School Teacher), Sohel da (Faculty, Sikkim University), Col. Wadhera, Col. Vishal, and Quakeschool team and many others I could meet during this trip.]



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Magnitude 6.9 Sikkim Earthquake

Source: Maps Of India

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Source: Assorted

Owner’s responsibility and School Safety Audits in India

In the India of today, we notice that a perseverant and systematic approach towards school safety or for that matter safety in educational habitats is required. Today, one can argue and probably agree at the same time that even the best of the nations struggle to come up with a strategy to effectively deal with this issue, and probably there is no end. The suggestions which come to us range from easy sounding ones such as creating law and legislative mechanisms to perhaps the most complex such as creating opportunities for the educational spaces owners to take responsibility; thus, as a collective towards achieving ‘Zero Life Loss’. Then one recalls the figures overwhelming in India, one can add other educational spaces, approximately 1.2 Million reported Secondary Schools* (figure source: DISE’s http://www.schoolreportcards.in/).

The following five form important components of conducting safety audits at individual schools, placed in order of priority, we think at this moment:

1. The robustness of building structure
2. The school assumes responsible stance during an emergency
3. There exists an Emergency Management Plan within the school
4. Help from external resource agencies such as firefighting, life saving and health, and rescue teams is available
5. Awareness and training programmes, and school habitat improvement is a continual activity

A detailed audit as above is important, but for schools a simple checklist like this (link) can be useful to its owners. While, many known agencies have been doing this important work at higher/top/policy levels, there is a dire need for a harder push and implementation at the ground level as well. There is a significant cost at the field implementation/grassroots level, which needs to be put in to operational and management plans. When risk and benefits are compared, this cost becomes trivial compared to its usefulness.

One can also argue, that it is actually the school’s own responsible stance which is helping to date, and to an extent sporadic and periodic work by responsible individuals which has helped this process. If one collects recent statistics, it may come out that perhaps schools in India are one of the safest in the world, but there still remains a lot to do as one cannot afford to get complacent in the light of rapid development and changes being seen in this part of the world, or for that matter any part of the world.

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*Formal schooling system in India: Kindergarten for three years, then twelve years of school, thereafter college and higher education.

Earthquake Threat in the Indian Subcontinent- India Seismic Zone Map and its Field Implementation

It is well established that 60% of India’s population is estimated to be directly under earthquake threat. And, add some more to it, it will cover the whole South Asian subcontinent. One may like to reiterate that approximately 20% of the present world population lives in the subcontinent, and the region has a 10-15% decadal increase in population. The internet (wikipedia) link elaborately explains composition of these countries. See the image below for the increase in population of India over the last 60 years. The subsequent image shows comparative population increase in the subcontinent.

Figure showing population increase in India (Source: Google Worldbank indicators)

Figure showing population increase in the Indian Subcontinent (Source: Google Worldbank indicators)

This increase in population coupled with concern of quality of structures being built leading to increased risk in these areas is thwarted with a parallel argument; whether things are actually that bad in these growing economies, such as South Asia?

Well, it is easier to immerse oneself in numbers or debate, and therefore, become lost. Or, else one can take note of the red spots in the zoning map with hope. Actually, the inspiration to this post is also the India’s earthquake zoning map until someone unknown re-filled the riskiest zone (Zone V) with red. Image below shows that Zone V is more dangerous than Zone II. Red draws most attention, and zoning can be, for ease of implementation, reflected by the fact that India’s seismic map has four zones now. Note Zone I doesn’t exist anymore in the map. This simplification was done to assist implementation in the vast plural context of India after the unfortunate 2001 Gujarat earthquake. This map is a result of the hard and perseverant intelligent work by the Bureau of Indian Standards along with senior experts such as Dr. Arya, and many other engineers who previously worked and have been working on this overwhelming issue of reducing earthquake vulnerability, or for that matter vulnerability to any natural disasters in the country.

Picture above: Map of India showing earthquake zones of India established by the Indian Standards Institution (BIS)

Source: Google image search. Original source: Bureau of Indian Standards

Or, it can be argued that major factors - such as terrain, political, technological capacities, growth, to name some will continue to challenge the implementation of earthquake risk reduction activities in the subcontinent for the coming years. And in case of India, one can pick these red blocks and see clearly where urgent interventions are required - its North Eastern states, and states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Bihar. Recent devastations in the subcontinent in Kashmir (2005) and Kutch (2001) are well known. These red spots are the riskiest spots, also known as ‘hot spots’. Perhaps, an independent but interconnected framework may help.

Amidst the so called tough ground realities, a stronger coordination is required to avert this ‘time bomb’. “We are sitting on a time bomb”, is what I recall during a meeting with a senior official at Shimla (Zone IV), a nice mellow hill town and state capital of Himanchal Pradesh; situated in a state that is tweaked red. It was 2004 then.

A Useful Tool

Link to Google’s and World bank’s tool for checking a country’s population of last 50 years.

Some thoughts on “SCHOOL SAFETY” in South Asian countries

Image source: Google Maps

Recently, we have been conducting some research for one of our clients on South Asian disaster history and its impacts on schools.

The interesting, unfortunate and perhaps already well publicized event is of the Kashmir earthquake in 2005 in which 17,000 School children were killed (out of a total life loss of some 80,000 reported) – the biggest known single event disaster to hit school buildings collectively. The number is exceptionally high because the earthquake struck during school hours. Other schools during other emergencies have been luckier – because it is the ‘important hours’ rather than ‘all hours’ that the children would spend in schools.

The next disaster events topping the list in the sub-continent are fire incidents, floods, war/terrorism, and malnutrition, only that these occur in a larger and slow intermittent period, measurable within a decade and amounting to a larger concerning number.

We will keep sharing more.

Quakeschool desk

India Natural Disaster Safety Portal launch

We are glad to have the beta version of the School and Hospital Safety Portal inaugurated today by the NDMA (Government of India) at New-Delhi today.

Aiming for safety - by being a knowledge and resource portal for Schools and Hospitals, and local communities as well, this portal has some interesting features.

Such as-

1. Registering School or Hospital's Safety Profile online

2. District level natural hazard status in India.
   Hazards covered currently are - 1) Earthquakes , 2) Tsunami, 3) Floods, & 4) Wind/Cyclones

3. A Library
   

4. FREE Downloading and Ordering of awareness Games and Posters

The various players who worked sleepless nights on making this portal a reality can be seen here. Beta version will be further improved upon with fine tunings and fixings in next coming months.

Please do regularly visit the site.