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VIEWPOINT: Iran quake policies flawed
27 Dec 2003
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Iranians clear rubble on their street in Bam.
Photo by RAHEB HOMAVANDI
Ben Wisner is a research fellow at the Development Studies Institute in London and co-author of “At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters” (Routledge).
The Iranian city of Bam was a stop on the Silk Road linking China and Europe. This 2,000-year-old city had a large proportion of unreinforced, mud and straw brick homes. Even a moderate earthquake such as the one on Friday -- 6.7 according to the U.S. Geological Survey, measured as 6.6 in France and 6.3 by seismologists in Iran -- can destroy such housing.
Occurring early in the morning when most people were inside asleep, the death toll of the December 26 earthquake was very high. Estimates at the time of writing are about 20,000 dead, with tens of thousands injured and most of Bam’s 80,000 to 90,000 residents homeless. Winter conditions evoke additional compassion.
But my emotions are mixed. There is also anger. In a country that experiences frequent earthquakes, and after nearly a decade and a half of concerted international effort to reduce disasters, how could two hospitals in Bam be sufficiently damaged to be put out of use? There is a global policy consensus that at a very minimum, cities should protect their lifeline infrastructure, especially hospitals. These hospitals were not 2,000-year-old mud brick structures like Bam's renowned, ancient citadel.
Coming so soon after the event, when NGOs and governments are scrambling to send relief assistance, when the regional and national governments of Iran and Iranian volunteers are doing everything possible to help the survivors, my complaint may seem a "cheap shot". However, I write these words with the greatest respect for the fine Iranian engineers, earth scientists and other professionals I've known over the years. I write in solidarity and with the greatest sadness, as well as anger.
There are systematic reasons why such obvious and agreed standards as protection for hospitals are neglected. In the second, expanded edition of “At Risk”, a book on people's vulnerability to disasters that I have written and revised with three British-based colleagues, we try to provide insight into the root causes and dynamic pressures that result in such unsafe conditions.
A colleague of mine who teaches on Northumbria University's Master of Science course on disaster management and sustainable development hosts a web site conceived as a home of radical interpretations of disaster and radical solutions, RADIX. This web site also attempts to bridge the gap between "knowing" and "doing".
By “root causes” we mean, for example, decades of national budgets skewed by perceived defense needs in Iran as well as anti-democratic clericalism that has discouraged citizen-based protest and campaigning for use of public funds to increase the safety of hospitals and schools.
Even earlier, one can trace these root causes back to the isolation of Iran following the overthrow of the Shah (who had been put in place by the United States/CIA). Although in recent years there has been more openness and secular organization -- celebrated symbolically in the Nobel Peace Prize won by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi -- these root causes of disaster vulnerability persist in their overarching societal influence.
“Dynamic pressures” transmit and mold such root causes. Dynamic pressures include the current low-level wars and occupations in neighboring territories to the east and west (Afghanistan and Iraq), as well as economic globalisation that is putting pressure on the Iranian economy. Detailed study of Bam and the Kerman Province would reveal how, precisely, such root causes (and others) have been shaped by dynamic pressures to express themselves in particular decisions concerning lifeline infrastructure in southeastern Iran.
I do not have that specialist knowledge. However, in Turkey in 1999 and 2003, for example, as in many other countries that have experienced high mortality from recent earthquakes, corruption in the construction industry has been found. Most recently, a school dormitory collapsed in southeastern Turkey, killing 84 schoolboys who were asleep. In India, the tragic loss of life in Gujarat in 2001 was partly due to lack of proper inspection and enforcement of building codes. Such specific unsafe conditions are perpetuated and reproduced by political and economic processes that have deep historical roots.
I hope readers will not see my mentioning a book and a web site as self-serving, even "ambulance chasing". Royalties from the book go to three regional networks of NGOs dedicated to dealing with the root causes of disaster vulnerability in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The web site is as much as collection of the common sense models and designs that should be implemented as of analyses of why this knowledge is often not applied.
The Earthquakes and Megacities Initiative and World Seismic Safety Initiative have both accumulated a great deal of knowledge about protecting cities, as has the Global Earthquake Safety Initiative.
If one compares the mortality from recent earthquakes along the West Coast of the United States -- 57 in Southern California (1994), three in central California (2003), 63 in northern California (1989), one further north on the coast in Seattle (2001) -- one has to ask why it is that people in the United States not only eat, drive and generally consume so much more than most other people in the world, but why they are safer living in a region of frequent earthquakes.
The knowledge exists for protecting cities and people from earthquakes. It is not being applied fast enough. There are too many competing priorities and not enough political will. We have to do better.
Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not those of Reuters.
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