Earthquakes highlight Delhi earthquake preparations | Delhi latest news

With residents across Delhi-NCR shaken early Wednesday morning by the tremors caused by a 6.6-magnitude earthquake in western Nepal, the shock waves also brought back the spotlight on the lack of earthquake preparedness in terms of meeting building safety standards.

Geographically, Delhi is within the range of seismic zone-4 which can expect the second highest level of seismicity but despite repeated interventions of the Delhi High Court, urban local bodies have been slow in ensuring compliance with structural integrity audits and retrofitting hazardous buildings.

In June 2020, the three previous municipal corporations set a 6-month deadline for obtaining the structural safety certificate for high-risk buildings and old structures that appeared before the inclusion of earthquake provisions in the Delhi building codes but approximately 2.5 years later, the municipal corporation received structural audit compliance from 758 buildings only. The MCD Compliance Report also adds that demolition actions were taken in 53 cases while the retrofit was underway in 16 cases.

According to a public notice on June 18 this year, local authorities issued a mandate to conduct a safety audit of all institutional buildings with large number of occupants such as educational institutes, assembly buildings, hospitals, shopping malls, cinema halls and hospitals. The state also covered all government and private buildings with a height of more than 15 meters. The notice stated that an audit would be mandatory for all “buildings without approved building plans” regardless of when they were built.

“For buildings that have an approved building plan, a deadline has been set for March 20, 2001 with the structural integrity audit of the older buildings being conducted,” a company official explained.

It is estimated that Delhi has 3.2 million buildings, and the majority of those buildings were developed without following any building regulations. The Tejendra Khanna commission established in 2006 to look into various aspects of unauthorized construction and misuse of buildings in the city found that 70-80% of the buildings had violated building standards.

Nearly two years after the deadline passed, the latest report by the Department of Commerce and Development says that the company has so far identified about 4,655 buildings, of which notices have been issued to 4,463. Even among the few buildings identified by previous MCDs, only 16.2% have submitted Structural audits.

Arpit Bhargava, who was the petitioner in the case, says civic bodies were not able to cover even 10% of the high-risk buildings.

“Even 1/10th of the buildings notified by the MCD have not yet performed structural integrity audits or retrofits. In April 2019, an action plan was submitted to the Supreme Court asserting that all buildings at risk will be covered in the next two years while buildings will be covered Medium and low risk in the subsequent 3 years.Being in seismic zone 4, Delhi residents are still at risk.A major earthquake can raze part of Delhi to the ground.

Large parts of the Himalayas, including northern India, are in seismic zones 4 and 5, making them not only vulnerable to severe earthquakes, but also highlighting the need for better preparation, said Kalachand Sain, director of the Wadia Institute.

“Such a strong earthquake can easily affect an area of ​​200-300 km around, so it is important to prepare in advance. The closer the epicenter is to an area like Delhi-NCR, the greater the impact and so it is important to ensure that old buildings are re-equipped and reconstructed The new buildings are taking into account the ability to withstand such high intensity earthquakes.”, he said.

The geographical distribution of the high-risk buildings identified by the Ministry of Civil Development shows that the highest buildings, 1,296, were allocated in Rohini followed by 574 in the western district, 495 in the central district, 450 in the southern district, 446 in the southern Shahdara and 391 in the Sadar Paharganj district. The largest number of demolitions were carried out in the Sadar Paharganj city district where 38 buildings were demolished, followed by the West and Rohini district where six and five of these buildings were removed, respectively, by the company and the owners.

A senior MCD official who took part in this court-commissioned campaign said the scale of illegal construction carried out without following standard building bylaws is so great that it poses practical problems in ensuring compliance.

“In many cases we have issued notifications but people are not responding. If we take drastic measures such as cutting off the power/water supply, it leads to a public protest. The scale of the case is very large and the problem is particularly glaring in the case of the walled city and the unauthorized settlements. The practical approach to covering large assembly buildings, government offices, high-rise units and older structures under the retrofit drive.Another MCD official said that the survey of hazardous structures is conducted by the construction department before the onset of the monsoons each year, but that this exercise has limitations as it simply depends on Visual survey of the area.

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