| November 23, 2005 | Wednesday | Shawwal 20, 1426 |
A doctor’s diary
A dismal year for EU chief
Will stricter building codes make our cities safe?
POST-QUAKE concern about the safety and resilience of buildings and constructions in future earthquakes, specially in cities like Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore, where the exposure to seismic damage is greater because of their population, number of buildings and infrastructure, has prompted a flurry of efforts to revise and strengthen the building codes.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had recently directed the Ministry of Housing and Works, reportedly in conjunction with Nespak, to submit a draft of revised building codes within a month. Meanwhile, CDA is also reported to be formulating a new code for all buildings, whether existing structures, under-construction or future constructions.
At the same time, the parliamentary standing committee on housing and works has been asked by a non-government organization, the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency, to oversee both the process of formulating new building codes for the northern part of the country as well as the process of their implementation.
Many questions arise from these efforts to revise the building codes. Do our cities, provinces have existing, already approved building codes which can be revised? Do the existing building codes contain any seismic provisions at all?
Does the Ministry of Housing and Works, or even Nespak or CDA for that matter, possess the necessary design and engineering expertise to revise building codes, incorporating provisions and criteria for construction of buildings to resist earthquake ground motions? And finally, how does the government plan to enforce the new building codes on the thousands of existing, presumably unsafe, structures in our cities?
It is a positive development that we have, though somewhat belatedly, recognized building codes as an effective tool for mitigating earthquake losses. These mitigation strategies, however, should not only be effective against future earthquakes, but should also be cost-effective as well. As a letter-to-the-editor in Dawn last week warned, the hype over building codes revision might influence our structural engineers to design unnecessarily strict and thus expensive earthquake resistant structures.
Ensuring that earthquake mitigation strategies are cost- effective requires that building codes be prepared or revised after a proper scientific understanding of tremors — where the earthquakes will likely to occur and what are their estimated magnitudes (geology); how they will cause the ground to shake (seismology); and how that shaking will affect our buildings (earthquake engineering).
Apart from the occurrence of quakes and the patterns of jolts, knowledge of the response of local rocks and soil to the shaking is also important in determining the hazards of ground failure during quakes. In addition to the earthquake’s magnitude and the proximity to the epicentre, it is a known fact that the condition of the soil around the building also determines the amount of shaking of a building, and thus whether it will collapse or not.
Needless to say, in areas of saturated soft soils where the danger of liquefaction (where the ground loses its strength and acts like a liquid during earthquake) is great and in mountainous areas where earthquakes are likely to induce landslides, significantly greater damage caused by ground failure is likely beyond that caused by the shaking alone.
Apart from faulty structural design, liquefaction could well also be a cause in the collapse of the Margalla Towers in Islamabad, given reports in the press that a chronically leaking underground water tank may have softened the soil beneath. Data for soil and engineering analysis of why the upmarket apartment block collapsed should have been collected quickly after the quake. Such post-quake data collection of the impact of the earthquake on Margalla Towers would have helped us understand how ground shaking and ground failure affected the structure and caused it to collapse.
This information would in turn have enabled engineers to effectively improve the design and construction of new high-rise structures in Islamabad, as well as to strengthen existing high- rise structures to withstand future earthquakes. Such vital information about the collapse could have thus formed a scientific and well-researched primary basis for improvements in building codes in the capital.
Only with the coordinated expertise of geologists, seismologists and earthquake engineers can we then take steps to enact effective, yet cost-effective, building codes and retrofitting (upgrading) programmes to make our cities safer. Otherwise, underestimation of the damage potential can lead to under-design of structures, while over-estimation can lead to unnecessary design and construction costs.
In a 2004 report entitled “A Safer, More Resilient California: The State Plan for Earthquake Research” prepared by the California Seismic Safety Commission, two examples were quoted to highlight the importance of well-researched, earthquake designs and tools in considerably reducing the costs in improving the seismic safety of existing buildings.
In one case where the redevelopment of an existing building required an assessment of its foundation, research on the elements of the foundation found them to be much stronger than current building code provisions had prescribed. This enabled the project to use the existing foundation at a net cost savings exceeding $600,000. The results were then disseminated to other earthquake professionals, which thus multiplied the cost savings.
In the second case, earthquake engineers had approached the seismic retrofit of an existing hazardous building using new engineering tools, which allowed the building to be retrofitted using a scheme that was much less architecturally intrusive. This allowed the building to remain fully occupied and functional during retrofit, brought retrofit construction costs down from an expected cost of $5.8 million to the actual cost of $1.8 million, and yet resulted in a building whose seismic performance rating was very much improved.
Apart from ensuring that the revision of building codes will make buildings earthquake resistant and will not render construction cost-ineffective, the government is likely to face an even bigger task in ensuring the enforcement of these revised building codes as well as the quality of construction at the local level.
Corruption is endemic in the construction industry, amongst other sectors in the country. As one engineer in NWFP was quoted as saying in Dawn last month after the quake that the government had failed to construct buildings according to approved plans as “everyone from the contractor to the clerk is involved in corruption”. Even the NWFP governor had lamented, at a convocation ceremony last week, that most of the public buildings in the quake-affected areas in the province, like schools, hospitals and government offices, had collapsed while many private structures were still standing.
Since corruption is the source of many of our country’s problems, reducing if not rooting out this evil by itself will certainly have a positive ripple effect in many areas, including the construction industry. There is no point in engaging in the elaborate exercise of revising the building codes if it is unlikely that these will be enforced or implemented.
So long as corruption rules at all levels of the construction industry, even the latest state-of-the-art document on earthquake design guidance will fail to make our cities safer and more resilient to earthquake.
Dr Naseem Salahuddin
THREE weeks after the earthquake struck, our team of six doctors — four women and two men — was in Muzaffarabad and the Jhelum Valley to run a medical camp. The devastation wreaked by the monstrous upheaval was beyond belief.
Driving through the city centre of Muzaffarabad one saw hundreds of structures reduced to rubble. Cement blocks dangled precariously from metal rods, poised to crush the cranium of a survivor. The three stories of Hotel Sangam stood at an angle as if a giant hand had pushed it aside. Collapse was imminent. A car lay flattened like a pancake under a collapsed structure. The once crowded Combined Military Hospital was no more. Earthmovers were levelling the ground which had swallowed up doctors, nurses, patients and equipment. Only the metal gate creaked to testify to the hospital’s past existence. Loudspeakers were still asking for help to dig out corpses from the rubble of a men’s college where the smell of decomposed bodies pervaded the air. The substandard construction of public buildings, educational institutions and hospitals became apparent as all had folded up like a pack of cards.
The house where we were accommodated was the lone intact structure in the entire neighbourhood. We were transported in cars with a convoy of three pickup trucks packed with medicines and relief goods. From Muzaffarabad we drove for two hours through rough and rocky terrain past Hattian Bala and then a further hour and a half uphill through pine forests to Bani Hafez at 7,500 feet. The road was steep, narrow, winding and often dangerously eroded and cracked. At one point a bridge had collapsed into the ravine.
We had adequate help at the Bani Hafez camp. Our arrival had been announced and scouts roved neighbouring villages bringing patients on makeshift stretchers. They had already queued up and were waiting for us in the warm sunshine under the trees. There was an abundance of medicines and material for wound management. Mattresses were laid out for those in pain or exhausted from the arduous ascent or descent.
Our medical team set to work at whatever the member felt best at. The anaesthesiologist started IV fluids on a few patients in shock from infection or simple dehydration, and injected intravenous antibiotics as needed. The ENT surgeon was best at wound debridement and dressing and attending to children with ear or throat infections or removal of foreign bodies. The young dentist busied herself with oral problems and helped in wound cleaning. The general practitioner dealt with the all too frequent complaints of muscle pain from being buried under debris, respiratory tract infections and non-specific complaints, and the medical student gave a helping hand to anyone who needed one. She was particularly good with infants and small children. Specialization in infectious diseases came in handy for selection of antibiotics for wound infections, pneumonias and bloody diarrhoeas. Tetanus immunoglobulin and toxoid were absent from our formulary but at our request were made available on the following day. Scabies was rampant. For suspected fractures we would write a request for X-ray and scouts would escort the patient in the van to the facility. Some patients required admission and were sent to the Abbas Medical Centre.
Over the four days of medical camp we treated over 500 outpatients and also acted as counsellors. Each man, woman or child had a poignant tale of deaths in the family, injuries or loss of home and belongings. They vividly recounted moments of the earthquake. Typically, one heard a strange hissing sound followed by a sensation of being thrown from one side to the other; the sky darkened from thick clouds of dust. Some escaped falling debris and others found themselves buried under the rubble or a beam or a wall. One woman scraped with her fingers to get her child out only to find that the child was dead. A school teacher sitting outside the classroom saw children buried below the neck or arms and legs sticking out of rubble. He was able to rescue at least a few students while others died screaming. When he looked in the opposite direction the other part of the building had vanished and he could see the field beyond. He thought he was dreaming until it occurred to him his own children might be dead. He ran to look for them, only to find the body of his only son. The four daughters and wife were home and alive. “I have just come to make my son’s grave,” he added as tears flowed and his shoulders convulsed as he wept. With the enormous number of students and teachers in school at 9am on that fateful day, and who either died or were injured, a vacuum of that generation will exist for years to come.
One man related how he was walking on the mountain with his son when the mountain fissured and the boy disappeared into the cleft for ever. A 20-week pregnant woman lay under a beam for six hours and could not be sure of fetal movements. A 12-year-old girl with a fractured arm carried her infant brother for miles. They were the sole survivors of their family in the vast, lonely world. Where would they go, what is their future? I kept swallowing that painful lump in my throat.
Twelve-year-old Samina could not walk to the camp from severe pain in her left hip and a wrist drop, so I clambered up the slope into her improvised hut. Her parents were alive but her brother had died. After injecting a pain killer I immobilized her wrist on to a cardboard splint. The grateful mother served me hot tea and biscuits from their meagre food stock. The father rummaged under the trees and picked choice walnuts and miswak for me to take back. “These and my prayers are all I can offer,” he said.
Since there is no industry for local employment a majority of men work in cities or overseas, leaving behind vulnerable women and children to fend for themselves. The medical, social and psychological consequences of the calamity will be permanent for many. Medical camps are helpful but two days at two sites each were insufficient. Continuity of care is essential and one can only hope that more doctors, especially women doctors and nurses, will volunteer. In any case, for the future this is the time to restructure preventive and curative healthcare, safe housing and employment. The villagers’ requirements are of food and shelter, not clothes which are discarded on the mountain side. One man disdainfully told me he did not want used or mismatched clothes, and another said he did not wish to carry extra weight up the mountain.
A scene that shall forever be embedded in memory is the valley that our camp overlooked. Four villages once dotted the forested mountain side. In the few seconds that the earth shook and the mountains rose and tore apart, a massive landslide swallowed all the homes in its hungry path. And there, before one’s eyes, was a third smaller mountain in the middle of the valley. This is the tomb of a few thousand villagers.
A dismal year for EU chief
JOSE MANUEL BARROSO completes one year as head of the European Commission this week — but few in Brussels believe he has much to celebrate.
The gloomy assessment of Barroso’s 12 months at the European Union steering wheel is partly the result of a wider EU crisis following the French and Dutch rejection earlier this year of a new European constitution and the increasingly difficult quest for a new multi-billion euro budget for the 25-nation bloc.
The fact that the bloc’s most important states — France, Britain, Germany and Italy — are in the midst of serious domestic crisis has also meant a slowing down of the EU machine and lack of progress on key issues.
But most EU watchers also agree that the 50-year-old former Portuguese premier, who took office on November 23, 2004, has done little to revitalize the EU or inject new vigour and confidence into the bloc’s policies.
True, Barroso has won praise for being a pragmatic politician and an articulate and skilful communicator who is equally at ease speaking English, French and Spanish as he is conversing in his native tongue.
This is in sharp contrast to Romano Prodi, the former Commission chief and current Italian opposition leader, whose communication skills left a great deal to be desired.
Barroso’s economic deregulation agenda and vows of slashing bureaucratic red-tape are popular with European business leaders struggling to comply with complex European Union rules and regulations.
But the list of grievances against the EU chief is much longer than the list of his achievements, with most commentators agreeing that Barroso’s first year in office has been marked by rhetoric rather than substance.
Critics are especially scathing about Barroso’s failure to provide strong leadership and fresh ideas in the wake of this summer’s rejection of the new EU constitution by voters in France and the Netherlands.
They say Barroso has been too quick to admit defeat and put plans for ratification of the constitution on the backburner.
As the 25-nation bloc struggles to clinch a new multi-annual budget amid growing Franco-British acrimony, the EU chief is also under fire for being too ready to take London’s side in the debate.
Within the Commission itself, the often autocratic Barroso is accused of running his 25-member executive team with an iron hand and allowing for little consultation.
EU insiders say the latest reshuffle of the Commission’s top bureaucrats was engineered almost solely by Barroso and key aides, with other members of the executive only being informed of the changes at the last minute.
Barroso’s key failing, say analysts, is his failure so far to make a mark on EU policies. As a result the European Commission has suffered a loss of influence and credibility and risks becoming little more than a ‘think-tank’ for EU governments, rather than playing its role as the engine for initiatives and new policies.
The prospect of a Commission which allows national governments to take the lead in policy-making while it focuses only on managing daily affairs is anathema to die-hard EU visionaries who believe that Commission chiefs should be like the legendary Jacques Delors who lead the EU executive in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Delors is widely credited with coming up with revolutionary new ideas like a single European currency and the creation of a frontier-free European single market. The former French finance minister was also a firm believer in EU political integration — and opposed EU enlargement which he feared would water down efforts to ‘deepen’ EU policies.
Barroso’s troubles started even before he took over the reins of command at the EU executive. The Commission chief was forced to drop several designated members of his new team after strong criticism from the European Parliament.
He then found himself under attack for having accepted an all-expenses-paid luxury cruise from an old schoolfriend, Greek millionaire Spiros Latsis.
While he has clearly mishandled some awkward moments, many also recognize that Barroso cannot be blamed for all of Europe’s problems.
Running a Commission composed of 25 men and women from diverse political and national backgrounds is no easy job. Unlike the previous Commission which included star players such as former trade chief Pascal Lamy (currently head of the World Trade Organization), Mario Monti who was anti-cartel chief and Chris Patten, formerly head of the EU’s foreign policy department, Barroso’s team includes few heavyweights.
Barroso is also in the unfortunate position of being in the doghouse with politicians and France. While new German Chancellor Angela Merkel is believed to favour Barroso’s reform agenda, former German leader Gerhard Schroeder had little time or affection for the Commission chief.
In addition, with growth faltering across the bloc Europe’s current economic mood is not conducive to encouraging policymakers in Brussels to come up with big and bright new ideas.
Many of the more controversial Commission initiatives — including a much-criticized proposal to liberalize cross-border exchange of services and tougher rules for use of chemicals by industry — were inherited from the previous executive.
Barroso’s supporters insist that French charges that he espouses an ‘ultra liberal’ economic agenda are unjustified. At a time of increasing global competition from countries like China and India, they say, Europe must modernize or face economic decline.
But few can deny that Barroso’s close relations with British Prime Minister Tony Blair are not helping the Commission president to make friends and influence other important EU politicians.
Under EU rules, the Commission must play its traditional role of impartial referee or risk losing respect and influence. It is a lesson that Barroso does not appear to have learned.