Local municipalities following the Ecuadorian earthquake need
information on best practices for establishing stability of affected buildings and identifying
earthquake prone policies in the future. Are there manuals or bp on this?
Any experts in this matter would be much appreciated. The municipality has to move now while there are donations coming in and machines are available. Until this inspection is done people will be afraid to sleep inside. Until we know the extent of damage, other projects like temporary settlements and reconstruction will be harder to get going.
1 Answer
There are many different approaches to establishing the safety of buildings, but all require sufficiently trained personnel. There is normally a government-mandated approach to doing this, but if there is not, the best thing would be to approach the Coordinator of the Shelter Cluster in the Americas, Anna Pont (anna.pont@ifrc.org | Mob. +593 ( 0) 9 67443201): https://www.sheltercluster.org/respon...
You could also approach Miyamoto, who undertook a large amount of damage assessment after the earthquake in Haiti: https://miyamotointernational.com/work...
One lesson from several disasters is that buildings deemed unsafe can be demolished and deemed safe can be lived in, but buildings deemed repairable leave the owners in limbo with a building that they can't live in and don't know how to fix. This should be considered when deciding what to do.
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