Bay Area Press: Local engineer appalled at Haiti building practices, fears survivors rapidly repeating fatal errors.
This week at UC Berkeley a local seismic engineer told a conference that the Haiti disaster’s real cause was not an earthquake. It was an utter failure in Haiti to have any shred of a building code. Many poor countries in seismically dangerous regions fail to inspect new buildings, but most at least have some regulations. Initial reports about Haiti carried many generalities about the role of poor construction practices in the tragedy. This is the sensible followup: detailed confirmation by expert inspection.
Worse, the man said, during his visit he saw local people picking up the shattered bricks and other building materials and re-erecting heavy structures too flimsily fastened together to withstand quakes that should pose minor risk in a well-built city.
Local press gave it a ride:
- UC Berkeley Seismoblog – Horst Rademacher : Extreme Damage That The Didn’t Have to Be ; This site, posted on occasionally here before, is written by a newspaperman. Rademacher reports that the engineer came back heartbroken upon seeing the same errors being mortared into the next disaster – bad concrete, minimal and badly applied steel reinforcing bar, and builders oblivious to ways to do it better. This was, Rademacher reports, the most devastating magnitude 7 earthquake in human history.
- SF Chronicle – David Perlman: Port-au-Prince buildings poorly reinforced ; The only substantial building in the whole city to survive without significant damage is the one built to standard int’l code, he reports. It is the US embassy.
- San Jose Mercury News – Doug Oakley: Engineer: Construction methods at heart of Haiti quake tragedy ;
See Also an engineering trade pub’s account of the engineers’ inspection:
- Engineering News-Record – Tom Sawyer, Nadine Post, Agnelle Bergeron, Pam Hunter: Haiti’s Quake Assessment Is Small Step Toward Recovery ; One surprise: the Presidential Palace is far from totally wrecked. Much of it is to be reoccupied soon.
The inspection results are reminiscent of news five years ago after a similarly moderate quake nearly flattened the ancient city of Bam in Iran. Some reports said then that traditional building methods would no longer be tolerated ( BBC here). One wonders what a reporter’s followup in that city would find today. Additional reporting on success of other building practice reform efforts and lessons they teach seems a natural story assignment. Int’l efforts to overhaul building trades in struggling nations could to be a way for foreign aid to leave a lasting improvement. Reporters could also find out how much private money, as from foundations set up by families made rich by great construction firms, has gone into philanthropy of this sort and whether it made any difference.
Pic, source ; Shows one, incomplete but properly reinforced building project undamaged, another standard Haitian concrete structure on the ground in pieces.
- Charlie Petit
February 1st, 2010 at 4:37 pm
Every time there is an earthquake in the developing world, we see these terrible collapses. But what does the Berkeley seismic engineer propose to do about it? The choice seems to be between blocking all construction or having the industrial nations give these countries all their buildings. We’ve got people squabbling over who is going to pay for the emergency medical treatments, so I don’t expect the US to rebuild Port au Prince. Nor do I expect the Haitian people to agree to spending the rest of their life out of doors. I would love to learn of a solution to the problem,, but do not expect to hear of one.
February 1st, 2010 at 5:09 pm
Charlie, I think that your suggestions for further reporting really get at some of the issues. I understand the heartbreak at seeing new building construction that will perpetuate the problem.. Maybe the heartbreak is the first stage of acknowledging the problem. I wonder whether, to what, if any extent, US corporations have built outposts in these countries, give back any more than employment.
Unfortunately, I don’t think Haiti is comparable to Iran: it has been perennially broke, has no infrastructure, and without outside philanthropy or investment. Too bad Clinton didn’t get things going there earlier.