LIKE other calamities, the quake that struck the northern parts of Pakistan on Oct 26 has stirred debate within our administrative and professional circles as well as in civil society. Whereas coordination among the military, federal and provincial bodies showed signs of improvement, accessibility and the capacity to reach out to stranded folk remained limited.

Hapless victims in Malakand, Upper and Lower Dir, Shangla, Chitral and other locations are braving intensely cold weather in inadequate shelter facilities. True, the National Disaster Management Authority, alongside other agencies, supplied 15,500 blankets, 8,750 tents, 14,000 tarpaulin shelters, 3,500 plastic mats, 10 tons of packed food items and four tons of bottled water to the quake-affected people, but clearly, it has not been enough and more effort is required. The quake hit mostly underdeveloped locations, but the state of preparedness of our large cities, such as Karachi, to withstand a disaster of this sort remains a major question.

The tectonic setting of Karachi, due to the converging proximity of the Indian, Arabian and Eurasian plates, underscores the substantial likelihood of seismic disasters in this region. The previous century brought about serious damage and destruction to Karachi. A massive tsunami hit the city in 1945. Generated by an underwater quake of magnitude 8.1, a giant tidal wave of 12 metres ravaged the settlements. Four thousand people perished. The entire coastline of Sindh and Makran was impacted.

A recent study says that 86pc of the building stock in Karachi will be unable to withstand even small tremors.

It must be remembered that Karachi had a population of about 435,000 a little before Partition. There were a few settlements perched along the coast; these mostly belonged to the fishing community. Today, the coastline is a dense urban place with multiple formats of development. Plush low-density, low-rise neighbourhoods in DHA, mixed land-use areas in Clifton and Lalazar, haphazardly built structures along Ibrahim Haideri and Mauripur/Hawkesbay largely characterise the urban fabric.

An interview session with some residents in each of these locations revealed that almost everyone was unaware about the sequence of response in the event of an earthquake or tsunami. People had no idea how to evacuate, which routes to follow and what instant measures to take. All over the world, cities and regions perennially facing a quake or tsunami threat possess institutions that conduct preparatory drills and review emergency checks on a regular basis. The Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Sindh, too, must prioritise resident education and preparedness drills, especially along the coastal terrain without delay.

The built environment of Karachi offers exceptional challenges. A small segment of buildings here can be categorised as properly designed and carefully constructed in compliance with building controls. Planned neighbourhoods in the south, east and northeast of the city are examples. But a major bulk of the structures raised in the city for residential, commercial, manufacturing and other purposes have not received any design and supervision input.

Random choice of materials and whimsical layouts characterise the construction of such buildings. Many of our built units have long surpassed their stipulated life cycles and are surviving on a wing and a prayer because of the inability of regulatory bodies to retrofit them or replace them with better structures. Inner city areas — including heritage properties — constitute this category. The current count of surveyed and notified heritage buildings in the old city area is over 1,200. Dozens of such structures have been assessed and declared dangerous by various committees, but still they remain occupied by overzealous tenants.

Squatter and informal settlements, which house about half the city’s population, have very different issues. The inner city and southern squatters have swiftly multiplying storeys. Punjab Colony, Neelam Colony, Shah Rasool Colony, upper and lower Gizri and Delhi Colony are saturated with structures that comprise ground-plus-eight flats. People resort to living in such inhuman and unsafe conditions to avoid high-cost transportation options. For fire tenders, ambulances and other emergency vehicles accessibility presents a predicament. The construction of these buildings has not been supervised. The rising incidents of fires demonstrate the inadequacies. Buildings have also collapsed and life and property have been lost due to the delayed responses and the inability of the relevant machinery to move in.

A baseline study recently prepared by earthquake engineering experts for the office of the commissioner Karachi estimates that 86pc of the building stock in the city would be unable to withstand tremors, even of a minute nature. Hence the need for a focused and in-depth probe according to urban planning and engineering principles remains paramount.

The buildings must be analysed for their current status, occupancy and utility, structural stability and safety provisions, including fire escapes, exits and firefighting systems. They should be reviewed for design and retrofitting in view of seismic dangers. Potential hazard points comprise electricity boards, gas installations and harmful storages.

Standards must be developed for minimum safety conditions. An appraisal of under-construction buildings and building plans needs to be undertaken. On a district-wide scale, information that relates to hazardous activity must be obtained.

It is a common knowledge that dangerous activities have penetrated the city’s neighbourhoods and there is virtually no check on this. The storage of gas cylinders, chemicals, inflammables and the like must be carefully noted and dealt with according to safety regulations.

At present, Karachi does not possess a planning agency. The functioning of this mega city is fragmented and left to a confusing amalgam of provincial, federal and semi-autonomous bodies without a coordinating mechanism. For disaster management and other vital urban affairs, Karachi must have a powerful planning agency with the mandate to prepare long-term as well as short-term plans. It should facilitate the process of implementation. Every master plan prepared for the city has recommended the creation of such an agency for its smooth functioning, as well as methodical responses to emergencies.

The writer is professor and chairman, department of architecture and planning, NED University Karachi.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2015

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