Earthquake Engineering, Seismology, Corruption, Ignorance, and PovertyRoger Bilham Despite a century of earthquake engineering, the last decade has been the worst ever in terms of the number of people killed by earthquakes - more than 650,000, with an order of magnitude more injured, and economic losses requiring reconstruction approaching half a trillion US$. Advances in earthquake resistance to structures have been accompanied by remarkable advances in our physical understanding of earthquakes, and our ability to identify regions where earthquake hazards are high. Given these advances in science, clearly something is missing in our attempts to reduce losses from earthquakes. Where is the disconnect between scientific knowledge and its application? I examine our current approaches to earthquakes as a global phenomenon in an attempt to identify areas where the best efforts of science and technology have failed. The three primary ingredients of our failure can be attributed to corruption, ignorance and poverty. Corruption is endemic to the human psyche, and is globally linked to poverty. In some countries it is worse than it should be, and it can be shown that more than 80% of deaths from earthquakes in the past 30 years have occurred in these countries. Ignorance is again linked to poverty, and an absence of access to education about earthquakes and constructional methods is responsible for many deaths from earthquakes that could be avoided. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, the world's poor do not have access to earthquake resistant buildings. This is not so much caused by the cost of safe building materials, but more often through their need to live in buildings constructed by corrupt or ignorant landlords. The most inexpensive remedy for all three of these ailments in society is education - in construction methods, and in simple explanations of the hazards and the history of earthquakes in their countries. |
