The colossal human tragedy and economic costs of the earthquake in Turkiye and Syria is a wake-up call for other quake-prone jurisdictions, including India, on the inadequacy of their preparedness. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is partially right in saying that it’s not always possible to be ready for a disaster of this scale, but the fact is that the Turkish government has been collecting a ‘permanent tax’ since 1999 to raise resources for earthquake preparedness. Legitimate questions are now being asked on how the $4.6 billion raised so far has been used. Erdogan had reportedly said in early 2020 that the money has been “spent where it should be spent” and that his administration didn’t “have time to account for such things anymore.” The lack of even basic preparedness in many quake-hit areas certainly doesn’t inspire confidence about the money being well spent.
More than 59% of India’s land area is under the threat of moderate to severe seismic hazard, with the hill states of Himachal, Uttaranchal, and the Union territories of Jammu and Kashmir lying in seismic zone V (that sees the highest seimicity) and large parts of the national capital region in zone IV. Zone IV, disaster management experts say, denotes fairly high seismicity, with quakes here being of a magnitude of 5-6 on the Richter scale; these areas can see occasional 7-8 magnitude quakes too. For perspective, the Turkiye earthquake measured 7.8. According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the “mushrooming of extensive unscientific construction” across the country, thanks to ever-increasing urbanisation pressures, heightens India’s risks of earthquake losses. Against this backdrop, adequate preparedness could mean the difference between catastrophe and crisis. The Centre, state and local governments must step up their act significantly. To illustrate, as per the latest edition of the Vulnerability Atlas of India (2019), a little over 94% of the houses in the national capital territory (NCT) still face moderate to high quake-damage risks.
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Like with many other areas of governance in India, earthquake preparedness suffers from a wide gap between policy and implementation. The National Building Code 2016, drafted by the Bureau of Indian Standards, details what can be done to make buildings earthquake-proof, or, at the very least, minimise the damage; a set of Simplified Guidelines for Earthquake Safety of Buildings accompany this. And then, there is a “ready reckoner” on earthquake preparedness for home-dwellers brought out by the Union home ministry. But, there is very little compliance reported, because there has been very limited effort on enforcing mandatory earthquake preparedness. In June 2020, against the backdrop of a spurt in seismic activity in the NCR, the NDMA exhorted states to ensure compliance of building bye-laws with a view to making constructions earthquake-resilient.
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In June 2020, the Delhi municipal body had fixed a six-month deadline for structural-safety certification of high-risk buildings that had been constructed before the building bye-laws were updated to provide for seismic safety compliance. By November 2022, it had received structural audit compliance from only 750-odd buildings. This is despite earthquake safety certification being mandatory for all buildings in the NCT irrespective of the date of construction. There is no deficit of technology—top-rung public funded institutes in the country have developed several low-cost methods for earthquake-proofing. The actual deficit is in awareness among the masses and the pace of implementation of existing policies and compliances by the government.