Encouraging cross-disciplinary engagement:
It is vital that the design disciplines, as well as earthquake engineering disciplines and policy- makers all understand the effects that design and planning decisions have on resilience. The objective of this initiative is to establish an international communication network for further discussion of these topics and sharing of knowledge.
Most disasters in especially poor countries have been found to occur as a result of poor quality construction and environmental degradation resulting from poor land use. Floods are attributable to building on water ways and poor sanitation and sewage systems.
A stage in the preparedness plan is to adopt standards and regulations that will ensure better building plans and use of land, among other things, to prevent floods and reduce losses in other disasters. These standards and regulations must include the development and enforcement of seismic codes, in an earthquake prone area, preventing people from building in high seismic areas, better building design and improved quality of construction, avoidance of deep well injections and filling of water impoundments, etc.; preventing people from building on water ways in flood risk areas and so on.
A natural disaster is the result of a vast ecological breakdown in the relationship between humans and their environment through violent imbalances of one or more of the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth. A natural disaster is always a serious and sudden event on such a scale that the stricken community needs extraordinary efforts to cope with it, often with outside help or interventional aid. After the study of Emilia Romagna earthquake and resilience, I found the amazing example of Father Ivan Martini. He was especially sensitive with poor people, taking care of their education. But Emilia Romagna, as other parts of Europe, suffered from a seismic amnesia for the last 450 years. Last year, Lorca in Spain woke up after 130 years of a similar seismic amnesia. Sofía, a few weeks ago, suffered also from a seismic shock. How many areas in Europe are still living in a dream?
Father Ivan Martini was killed May 29 when falling debris crashed on top of him while he was trying to save sacred and liturgical objects in the church. Fear and anxiety are natural responses to the terror and destruction wrought by a natural disaster, but God's love is rock solid, providing certainty and solace for all victims, Pope Benedict XVI said when talking about him.
We need to identify disaster-prone areas through geological map sharpening and detailed mapping of our countries, and even smaller regions, to be disaster prone, and start with many disaster management teams to organize programmes to educate the people on the findings, their implications, and what to do when disaster strikes. This can be done through the media, the disaster management staff can also visit schools, organizations and houses to inform and educate the people. The disaster education programmes can even be incorporated into school curricula. The education programmes normally inform the people on what they should do and how they should behave during the impact phase of a disaster, the kits and food they should get at the pre-impact phase, and also how to protect important documents and store potable water. We Europaens are still almost illiterate in this regard. So we technicians, must call our neighbors to awareness, especially after the l’Aquila, Emilia Romagna, and Lorca events.
PAKISTAN 2005
BULGARIA 2012
HAITI 2010
JAPAN 2011
ITALY 2012
NEW ZEALAND 2011
SPAIN 2011
NEW ZEALAND 2011
ITALY 2012
COSTA RICA 2009
MEXICO 2012
SPAIN 2011
PAKISTAN 2005
IRAN 2010
CHILE 2010
NEW ZEALAND 2011
NEW ZEALAND 2011
PAKISTAN 2005
SHE WAS IN JAPAN 2011
PERU 2007
HAITI 2010
PAKISTAN 2005
HAITI 2010
SPAIN 2011
EMILIO CARREÑO, SPAIN 2011
NEW ZEALAND 2011
HAITI 2010
ELENA SALGADO, SPAIN 2011
JAPAN 2011
ITALY 2009
ITALY 2012
ITALY 2009
SPAIN 2011
ITALY 2012
COSTA RICA 2009
ITALY 2009
COSTA RICA 2009
JAPAN 2011
COSTA RICA 2009
NEW ZEALAND 2011
SPAIN 2011
MEXICO 2012
KIRK HERBSTREIT USA 2011
COSTA RICA 2009
USA 2011
HAITI 2010
CHINA 2008
JAPAN 2011
ITALY 2012
ITALY 2012
PERU 2007
USA 2011
HAITI 2010
USA 2011
PERU 2007
TURKEY 2011
It is essential to raise the awareness of the population in general, especially the building sector, regarding the existence of areas highly vulnerable to earthquakes in the European geography. The time has come to determine the preventive actions to be adopted as well as to plan all the procedures to follow in case of a high magnitude seism’s striking. These two should be the main objectives to be promoted by the administration, as well as the transmission of a clear message: Italy, Spain, Greece, and all the Mediterranean countries are places with seismicity capable of killing and injuring people, seriously damaging buildings, infrastructures or heritage, or even paralyzing the whole economic activity of vast regions in the continent.
Will Europe always be in the situation that Lorca, Emilia Romagna, l'Aquila are in now? Aware of looming catastrophe but taking no action to prevent it? Or does Europe have the political will and courage to invest in its future by retrofitting the many known seismically vulnerable historical cities with regards to buildings and land? Such investment will cost building owners in the short term, but will reap many benefits in the long term, both for the owners and the community at large when strengthened buildings continue to function as safe homes and sources of continued revenue in the aftermath of a major seismic event. Inaction is inexcusable in light of the peripherical known vulnerability and the fact that most of these risks are avoidable with an adequate urban planning based on a correct knowledge of the physical environment.
