Are the world’s quake zones prepared for another disaster like in Turkey and Syria?

Images of death and destruction broadcast around the world have prompted questions about the disaster-readiness of seismically active areas, writes Borzou Daragahi

Devastating earthquakes such as those that struck Turkey and Syria have a wider impact (AP)

In California, seismologists are warning that both Los Angeles and San Francisco are due for massive quakes. In India, there are grave questions about how tens of millions would fare should the unthinkable happen. In the Philippines, residents are discussing “doomsday” scenarios in which an earthquake would hit the sprawling capital.

In the Balkans, in the Middle East, in the earthquake-prone island nations of east Asia, and all along the heavily populated Pacific coast of the Americas, which rests along some of the most dangerous cracks on Earth, the same question resounded in the wake of the 6 February disaster that befell southern Turkey and northern Syria: are we ready for the big one?

“¿Estamos preparados?”, demanded the headline on a 19 February editorial in the newspaper El Diario in Colombia, where an earthquake in 1999 killed more than 1,000 people.

The conclusion of various experts is that many earthquake hotspots are woefully unprepared, and could suffer another disaster like the one that has already killed at least 50,000 in Turkey and Syria. And if there is a single silver lining to the disaster earlier this month, it is that it could serve as a wake-up call, both for Turkey and for other seismically active areas.

“It is important that we take advantage of this circumstance, which had such an impact on public opinion, to answer the general question that emerges from all previous ones: are we prepared?” wrote Duarte Caldeira, a chair of the board of directors at Portugal’s Centre for Studies and Intervention in Civil Protection, for the news outlet AbrilAbril.

As aftershocks and tremors continue to rattle southern Turkey more than two weeks after the initial quakes, civic leaders, politicians, and ordinary citizens living in seismic danger zones are asking themselves whether their buildings are safe, their evacuation procedures sound, and whether they will know what to do if disaster strikes.

“There is normally a golden window of opportunity after an event like this for there to be some kind of advancement in policy,” says Ziggy Lubkowski, a civil engineer specialising in earthquakes at Arup, a London-based architecture and design firm.

Earthquakes cannot be prevented. They are a reality of a geologically active planet with a fiery core and constantly shifting topography. But engineering resilience, and civil-protection measures, can mitigate the impact of natural disasters.

In 1985, a massive earthquake wrought havoc on Mexico’s Michoacan province, killing more than 10,000 people, including in the country’s nearby capital. Hastily constructed buildings collapsed, and the famously corrupt government of the time botched its rescue efforts, at first refusing offers of foreign aid.

But last year, when another large quake struck in almost the same location, only two people were killed – a difference some experts attribute to sturdier construction standards and better disaster-management preparations, but due mostly to a modified understanding of how earthquakes affect soil.

Construction codes after 1985 took into account soil and ground composition, which can amplify or blunt the impact of an earthquake. The world now understands the dangers of building on soft soil in an earthquake zone, but continues to do it anyway.

The damage caused by the earthquake in Turkey was exacerbated by poor adherence to construction regulations. Property developers cut costs by using substandard materials and inappropriate designs, and then paid the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan for exemptions as part of successive amnesty programmes. More than 6,000 buildings collapsed. Among them were luxury highrises built in recent years.

“This is totally unacceptable,” says Eduardo Kausel, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “This is a failure of policy.”

Experts say that Turkey should have known better and learnt from past disasters. After the infamous 1960 earthquake struck Chile – a 9.5 magnitude calamity that remains the most powerful seismic event ever recorded – the country upgraded its building codes and then enforced them. When another powerful earthquake struck in 2010, it caused far fewer fatalities and less damage.

“Chile doesn’t have amnesties,” says Kausel. “It has very strict building codes, and they are enforced.”

Turkey’s rapid growth and urbanisation over the last quarter-century was seen in many parts of the developing world as a model for growth. Ankara has spread its influence by investing in its armed forces and expanding its military footprint in the Middle East and Africa.

Following the earthquake, Turkey is now being seen as a cautionary tale of wasted resources and lessons not learnt. Around the world, voices are calling on governments not to repeat the same mistakes.

“It is imperative that developing economies’ governments, instead of investing in new weapons, may build up rescue infrastructures on priority basis,” columnist Naqi Akbar wrote in Pakistan Today. “National security imperatives need to be debated and balanced with health infrastructures, whose utility is greater to reach out to people in distress in the aftermath of natural disasters.”

Many other regions of the world are now noticing shortcomings and failures similar to those in Turkey. In Lisbon, planners are aware that around two-thirds of the city’s 450,000 buildings were built before 1990. In Israel, the press are reporting that only $2m of $1.5bn (£1.67m of £1.26bn) allocated in 2019 to strengthen older buildings has been spent. In California, public safety advocates have warned that the same brittle concrete that crumbled in southern Turkey is used in many buildings in Los Angeles.

“California’s cities remain at risk – of collapsed older buildings, significant economic and social disruption, and prolonged recovery times,” said a statement issued on 23 February by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the Structural Engineers Association of California. “Future large earthquakes will occur in California. How we prepare now will impact how we respond and recover later.”

Engineers say that building a new structure with advanced earthquake features is relatively straightforward. But upgrading an older building is more costly and complicated, and, unlike rebuilding a facade or planting a garden, doing so may not increase its market value.

“Earthquakes are very unforgiving,” says Kit Miyamoto, CEO of Miyamoto International, a structural engineering firm specialising in disaster risk reduction. “If you do only 90 per cent right, the 10 per cent will kill you.”

Devastating earthquakes such as those that struck Turkey and Syria have a wider effect around the world, draining already badly taxed global humanitarian resources and funding. Earthquake experts warn that a number of major cities along active fault lines are due large-scale earthquakes. They include Istanbul, Tehran, Manila, Jakarta, and Wellington, New Zealand, as well as major cities along the Pacific coasts of the Americas.

Even an earthquake directly beneath a city in Japan, the world’s most seismically active nation and one that prides itself on its disaster preparedness and engineering prowess, would collapse older buildings and wreak havoc.

“There are hotspots everywhere,” says Miyamoto, speaking from Ukraine, where he has been assessing buildings for damage caused by Russian missiles. “The seismic hazard hasn’t changed. It’s all the same. But if you compare it to 50 years ago, cities today are much bigger, taller, and denser, but without proper engineering or planning.”

Experts say that public pressure now could help lower the impact of a disaster later. Across the world, many are already calling for action. It is urgent that governments act now, before inertia sets in.

“Lawmakers should immediately get started on updating the building code,” said an editorial in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, one of the country’s top news outlets. “The government must ensure that its rules and regulations are strictly enforced, otherwise efforts to mitigate disaster would be useless.”