earthquakes, again
The earthquake in South Asia is even more devastating than originally reported--some 18,000 dead at least. A blog for information and resources is now up at quakehelp.blogspot.com, and Relief Web has a list of organizations at work in the area. The Pakistan Red Crescent does not seem to have a donation page, but the IFRC does here.
The images are awful; concrete apartment blocks smashing down on themselves, and smaller buildings reduced to rubble. It looks a lot like the aftermath of the Izmit quake here in 1999, which killed a similar number of people--except the Pakistan quake was even larger, and the number of casualties may still be rising. Urban areas and small towns in the quake-prone developing world are so, so vulnerable to these events, because of the combination of high population density and the lack of earthquake-proof engineering and construction (such as that protecting wealthy, developed-world cities like San Francisco, Seattle or Tokyo. High magnitiude quakes in such places usually have death tolls in the tens or hundred rather than the thousands.) Traditional housing structures--like the mudbrick buildings that collapsed in the Bam quake in Iran--are vulnerable, but unreinforced concrete tenements are deathtraps.
As this article points out, there's not much in the way of international funding for earthquake (and other disaster) prevention measures in the developing world, although I know UNDP has some disaster risk-reduction programs in vulnerable areas. Last year's tsunami gave the impetus to efforts to develop better warning and evacuation systems, but unlike tsunamis, earthquakes can be virtually impossible to predict in time for evacuation. The only way to prevent disasters on this scale is to invest in safer building construction, and the political willpower to fund international development efforts in this field never seems to come until too late.
UPDATE: here's an awesome NGO I just found out about called GeoHazards International that does exactly this kind of work. They've run projects in India, Turkey, Nepal, and Central Asia. I imagine they could use some funding support.
The images are awful; concrete apartment blocks smashing down on themselves, and smaller buildings reduced to rubble. It looks a lot like the aftermath of the Izmit quake here in 1999, which killed a similar number of people--except the Pakistan quake was even larger, and the number of casualties may still be rising. Urban areas and small towns in the quake-prone developing world are so, so vulnerable to these events, because of the combination of high population density and the lack of earthquake-proof engineering and construction (such as that protecting wealthy, developed-world cities like San Francisco, Seattle or Tokyo. High magnitiude quakes in such places usually have death tolls in the tens or hundred rather than the thousands.) Traditional housing structures--like the mudbrick buildings that collapsed in the Bam quake in Iran--are vulnerable, but unreinforced concrete tenements are deathtraps.
As this article points out, there's not much in the way of international funding for earthquake (and other disaster) prevention measures in the developing world, although I know UNDP has some disaster risk-reduction programs in vulnerable areas. Last year's tsunami gave the impetus to efforts to develop better warning and evacuation systems, but unlike tsunamis, earthquakes can be virtually impossible to predict in time for evacuation. The only way to prevent disasters on this scale is to invest in safer building construction, and the political willpower to fund international development efforts in this field never seems to come until too late.
UPDATE: here's an awesome NGO I just found out about called GeoHazards International that does exactly this kind of work. They've run projects in India, Turkey, Nepal, and Central Asia. I imagine they could use some funding support.
posted by kitabet at 1:47 AM
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