Pakistan’s earthquake showed not just the power of geological faults but also the dangers of political fractures that for too long have devastated Asia. While it’s hard to image good coming from a disaster that killed more than 30,000 people, in other places political leaders have embraced positive changes in similar circumstances.
After a 1999 temblor killed 17,000 people in Turkey, Greece offered aid, a gesture that improved relations between the two rivals. Last month, Indonesia’s government and Aceh rebels ended a 29-year war to cooperate on repairing damage from the 2004 tsunami.
Though India lost more than 800 people in Sunday’s temblor, New Delhi offered aid to its much harder-hit neighbor Pakistan – “for the first time in living memory,” said the Telegraph of Calcutta. Unlike the United States, which rejected Cuba’s aid offer after Hurricane Katrina, Pakistan said yes. The nations had been working to ease hostilities, and relief efforts could accelerate peace and cooperation.
Central Asia is ripe for earthquakes, but in the past, people had no way to protect themselves. That’s no longer true. Scientists can’t forecast when earthquakes will happen but can predict where they’ll occur and how strong they’re apt to be.
Clearly, the immediate priority is to get relief to Pakistan’s devastated areas. (DenverPost.com has a list of charities.) The U.S. diverted eight helicopters from Afghanistan to ferry supplies and high-tech search equipment. The next step will be to rebuild, giving aid agencies an opportunity to help Pakistan avoid an appalling loss of lives in the next temblor.
When the 1989 earthquake hit northern California, only 67 people died, almost all of whom were trapped by the collapsed Cypress freeway – which wasn’t built to modern codes. A few miles away, the well-engineered TransAmerica skyscraper swayed for a minute but suffered no real damage. In 1971, California evacuated 80,000 people because the Lower San Fernando Dam was badly damaged in an earthquake. But in 1994, the replacement Los Angeles Dam, a structure built to tougher standards, suffered only superficial cracks after a nearly identical temblor. By contrast, in 1985 Mexico City lost 8,000 people in a quake mostly because the government hadn’t enforced its own building codes. Falling structures also killed tens of thousands in Iran in 2003, India in 2001, Iran in 1990, Armenia in 1988 and China in 1976.
Yet preventative measures are surprisingly affordable. Bolting a building to its foundation stops it from sliding and collapsing. Buildings also should be erected on bedrock, not soft soil.
As Pakistan rebuilds, it should seek international funds and expertise to construct earthquake-resistant buildings. Another big temblor is inevitable, but losing so many thousands of people is not.
