Why do schools and hospitals collapse in earthquakes?

In response to the earthquake near Bingol, Turkey in the early morning hours of 1 May, I wrote the following in reply to a question from Guardian science editor Tim Radford. Although these thoughts are very rough and preliminary, the same passion moves me now as it did Maureen Fordham and me in January 2001 when the earthquakes in El Salvador and Gujarat caused us to launch RADIX (see UN Chronicle, Issue 4, 2000). I am inspired by the example of Haresh Shah, David Alexander and others who have repeatedly and publicly promoted the idea of enforcing internationally accepted standards of safety for schools and hospitals everywhere in the world and the excellent work of the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Organization of American States and other regional bodies, in trying to move incrementally toward that goal.

The basic question is why again and again, even in affluent industrial countries and in middle-income developing countries with a great wealth of engineering and other expertise, schools and hospitals collapse during moderate earthquakes. A middle-income developing country should have every school and school dormitory in the country inspected and, where necessary, reinforced. This is basic to risk-mitigation in a seismically active area.

Many countries continue to fail even this simple and relatively inexpensive test of concern for the lives of children. In November 2002 in San Guilano di Puglia, Italy, primary schoolchildren died in a moderate earthquake, when a concrete slab from a second storey that had been improperly built onto the school house fell in on teachers and children.

Tucked away in RADIX under the heading "Knowing versus Doing" is also my article, "Improved building construction?" I had not looked forward to being the first to disagree with you, but there has been too much recent and forceful "putting the world to rights".

First, I share the despair and, like you, I have done so for many years through many catastrophies. But it has to be a national thing; we can all only lead and help where we are asked to. We cannot expect to take over and have things change as we want them to--it has to be done indigenously from within. Building construction, even of an appropriate kind, is not enough. I would and have said that there will "always" be a margin--probably a large margin--between what is achievable and the potential destructive capacity of some earthquakes. Until techniques are more widely practicable for localized assessments of earthquake risk, how buildings are built will have little to offer for where they are built. The distribution, siting and form of buildings could be more logically considered within present local knowledge than they repeatedly appear to have been in the aftermath of earthquakes--almost anywhere. Those techniques could be applied to buildings locally considered to be of highest priority.

It is therefore not a sectoral matter to do only with how buildings are constructed, but one that impinges overall upon development strategy, both nationally and locally, to do with human rights, social and political disadvantagement and, I have to say again, political will and political integrity.

I inwardly share your passion, as well as your despair, but we must accept that it will take many years to achieve the changes we all know to be necessary.

Ben Wisner is a Research Fellow with the Crisis States Program of the Development Studies Institute, London School of Economics, and at Benfield Hazard Research Centre, University College London. He is a co-founder of RADIX.

James Lewis is an architect and a consultant in hazards and human settlements. Currently a Visiting Fellow in Developmental Studies at the University of Bath, he is author of Development in Disaster-prone Places (IT Publications, London, 1999).