Editorial | Preparing for earthquakes

This newspaper hopes that the people in authority are listening to Professor Simon Mitchell – and other people who know about the geology of Jamaica and about earthquakes.

Without being alarmist, these people, Professor Mitchell especially, have been warning that, almost inevitably, Jamaica will face a big earthquake. But they cannot say when.

As Professor Mitchell, who teaches sedimentary geology at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, told the radio station Nationwide News Network last week, “it could be in the very near future, or it could still be years away, or decades away”.

The point is, Jamaica must aggressively prepare for this eventually, so as to minimise the fallout from the catastrophe, any time it happens.

This, of course, is not new. Seismologists have for decades been imploring Jamaican administrations to action, apparently with varying levels of success.

The attention of governments, on its face, seems to ebb and flow. They become agitated during periods of significant seismic activity, but cool when the activity recedes.

What this newspaper hopes for, and the situation demands, is concerted policy action. In other words, Jamaica should prepare for earthquakes as robustly as it plans for hurricanes, and as, increasingly, it is placing climate change on the national agenda.

In thinking about earthquakes, and preparing therefor, policymakers must invoke the post-Gilbert attitude, taken after that hurricane struck Jamaica in 1988.

DODGED

The island had largely dodged major storms over the previous 38 years and become complacent in construction methods. In Gilbert, nearly 90 per cent of homes lost their roofs. Thereafter, hurricane straps became a requisite for roofs.

Jamaica has not faced a seriously destructive earthquake in 117 years, when one estimated in the Category 6.5 range killed more than 1,000 people and injured thousands more. More than 9,000 people were left homeless islandwide, although most of the deaths and destruction were in Kingston.

In 1907, most buildings were constructed with either bricks or timber, and were not engineered for earthquakes.

The current focus on earthquakes, and the inevitability of the next ‘big one’, is in the face of a recent series of significant shocks, including one at magnitude 5.3 on August 16. That followed a magnitude 5.6 shake last October, and a 4.9 magnitude tremor six months earlier.

There have been hundreds of normal, and expected, quivers and shakes in-between the more notable events.

In the circumstances, expecting policymakers to upgrade and accelerate their earthquake preparation and mitigation programmes is just plainly sensible.

The Gleaner has, however, noted Professor Mitchell’s observations about the recent trend in earthquakes and the possibility of a geographic and potentially very dangerous shift in where they originate.

Jamaica, like the rest of the Caribbean, sits on a tectonic plate that is riddled with faults, making the region susceptible to earthquakes.

But, as Professor Mitchell explained last week, the main area in public discussion of faults in Jamaica is the Plantain Garden Fault, which “continues towards the east”.

However, there is a larger and longer fault, which runs from offshore of the southwestern parish of St Elizabeth, comes ashore in Clarendon, north of Portland Ridge, and reaches to the south-eastern parish of St Thomas. The concern is that earthquakes over the last two years appear to be increasingly moving in a westerly direction and could impact the south coast fault.

“And, because that’s a very long fault, it has the potential to produce very large earthquakes,” Professor Mitchell told Nationwide radio.

He added: “If we see these earthquakes pushing stress along, and they are related, which seems to be a possibility, it could be adding stress to that fault. And, if that fault were to move, we could potentially have a very large earthquake.”

This, up to now, is mostly, though informed, scientific conjecture.

HELP PREPARE

But we agree with Professor Mitchell on the importance of talking about these possibilities, to help policymakers to prepare, “so that if the unthinkable does happen, people have a plan of what to do”.

The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management does run public information announcements on how citizens should respond in the event of earthquakes. These must be more frequent. So too, should be earthquake drills, especially in the context of the growing numbers of mid and high-rise buildings across the island.

Similarly, the authorities should undertake a review and stress-testing of not only older buildings, but of the new high-rises to ensure that they are compliant with existing building codes and are designed to withstand intense earthquakes.

The existing Building Act and related building code must also be re-evaluated to confirm their relevance to the emerging circumstances.

Additionally, the regulatory and oversight regimes must be fit for purpose and uncorrupted. There is the example of Turkey, where a corrupt regulatory system led to issuing building permits for thousands of poorly engineered high-rise buildings.

When an earthquake hit, very large numbers of these buildings collapsed, killing tens of thousands of people.