2005 earthquake: ‘Same magnitude tremor can flatten Karachi’

Shamshad says that a multi-hazard and seismic evaluation study should immediately be initiated

ISLAMABAD:

An earthquake of magnitude similar to that of 2005 tremor can flatten 71 per cent of structures in Karachi, which is located close to triple fault-line junction.

NESPAk Vice President Tahir Shamshad said this while speaking at a seminar titled “the 10th anniversary of October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan”, organized by the SDPI here on Monday, said a press release issued here on Monday.

Shamshad said that a multi-hazard and seismic evaluation study should immediately be initiated for preparing a safety and mitigation plan.

He said that after the 2005 earthquake, the government prepared a comprehensive building-codes guideline on the basis of the micro-zoning study, but its phase-II has not yet been launched, without which, it was difficult to implement them on ground.

Read: Caught in time: Photographs bring back horrors of 2005 earthquake

In Pakistan, building codes were British, which did not apply to the region while the ERRA has done some good work which should be made a part of its institutional memory, he said.

AJK Minister for Social Welfare and Women Development Farzan Yaqoob said that important work of building schools could not be completed due to difficulties in acquisition of land and poor coordination among institutions.

She said that now after the earthquake, Kashmir was a victim of flashfloods and some study should also be done to mitigate their impact.

SDPI Executive Director Dr Abid Suleri said that “we need to understand what we learnt from the disasters, which is the way forward”.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2015.