The 7.4 magnitude earthquake of April 3 destroyed around a 100 buildings in Taiwan, an island criss-crossed with fault lines, and resulted in the tragic loss of 10 lives. The damage, given the intensity of the quake, could have been worse, but was minimised because of the decades-long preparedness plans and building codes which are revised regularly and implemented strictly.
Every country struck by quakes frequently, such as Japan, the US or New Zealand, have detailed seismic code provisions, but India, despite having codes covering a variety of structures from mud houses to modern highrises, does not have a robust mechanism in place to implement the rules.
India’s first formal code, IS 1893 was published in 1962. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) codes, according to an IIT-Kanpur and Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council document, include: IS 1893 (Part I), 2002, Indian Standard Criteria for Earthquake Resistant Design of Structures (5th Revision) IS 4326, 1993, Indian Standard Code of Practice for Earthquake Resistant Design and Construction of Buildings (2nd Revision) IS 13827, 1993, Indian Standard Guidelines for Improving Earthquake Resistance of Earthen Buildings IS 13828, 1993, Indian Standard Guidelines for Improving Earthquake Resistance of Low Strength Masonry Buildings IS 13920, 1993, Indian Standard Code of Practice for Ductile Detailing of Reinforced Concrete Structures Subjected to Seismic Forces IS 13935, 1993, and Indian Standard Guidelines for Repair and Seismic Strengthening of Buildings.
However, while these codes ensure relative safety of structures in a moderate earthquake without damage and intense shaking without total collapse, they do not guarantee zero damage during earthquakes of all intensities.
“Correlating the Taiwan quake to lessons in India is important,” says Sandeep Donald Shah, a structural engineer and MD of earthquake and structural engineering firm Miyamoto International India.
The faultline running all along the northern region of the Himalayas is a very potently active faultline, especially as the Indian plate is pushing into India at the rate of 47mm a year.
A World Bank and United Nations report also estimates that around 200 million city dwellers in India will be exposed to storms and earthquakes by 2050.
Even though there is no technology in the world which can predict the time, location and magnitude of a quake, studies conducted and research papers published estimate that the stress build-up in the faultlines has reached levels where a rupture is possible.
“No one can predict when it will happen, but it can happen today, it can happen in five years,” says Shah.
What’s needed, he says, is strengthening of the national seismic code, IS 1893, Part 1, and IS 1893, part II. Revised codes had been prepared nearly a year ago, “but due to red tape the code has still not been released for the public to use,” he adds.
For Shah, the 50-pager is the most important document in India. It has the potential to protect millions of buildings and lives in the country because of stricter implementation recommended.
“Japan and Taiwan have made decades and decades of preparatory efforts to face earthquakes and become more resilient so that infrastructure and population gets least affected in the event of a quake. In India we have a knowledgeable, well read, well-travelled research community that’s working on earthquake safety. When these codes are prepared, hundreds of scientists give their opinions, write different parts of the code before the final document is prepared. No other document as important as this one exists in the country. I am saying this because it takes into account safety standards in schools, hospitals, tall buildings, villages… roads and bridges, railways. Everything gets affected,” he says.
Shah, who had also filed a PIL (no 376 of 2014) in the Supreme Court, arguing his own case as he couldn’t afford a lawyer, for earthquake safety awareness, he had asked:
1. That the government increase earthquake safety awareness by issuing advertisements in newspapers, TV channels and all media
2. That advertisements of buildings by developers display the earthquake category rating (A to D) on top in bold – A being safest and D having the lowest safety standard. “You can argue that all buildings cannot be category A but you can endeavor to ensure that all buildings at least follow some sort of safety standard,” says Shah.
3. The third prayer in the PIL was for high-occupancy buildings such as highrises, hospitals or large institutes like schools, to display a card in the lobby levels specifying their category - A, B, C or D.
“If there are 2,000 people working in that building, someday they would want to know and question what category B entails. That means more awareness of a potential disaster, that too just through a steel plate costing Rs 500 in the market,” says Shah.
Disposing of the writ petition, the SC judges had said: “We have no doubt that the respondent will look into the suggestions that are made by the petitioner.”
“I was hopeful,” Shah says. But nothing was done.
He does feel frustrated, he says. “But we have to live with it.”
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