Dear All
there is a considerable amount of work been done on school safety, notably in
campaigning by Ben Wisner (report School Seismic Safety) through ActionAid and
ISDR and others. I am travelling and unable to check all the sources at the
moment.
We also know from much research that Paul Grundy's point 5 below is not really
relevant if the political will is in place. More significant is the issue of
failure to abide by buiilding codes for NEW schools, never mind retrofitting!
Some of the Chinese victims are bravely raising the issue of corruption in the
construction of new schools that collapsed.
On retrofitting, there is currently a programme under way in Bogota, Colombia,
to retrofit all schools in the city. this is supported by a World Bank LOAN. It
is a scandal that this is a LOAN and not a grant. Again, there are plenty of
resources in the world that could be diverted to many aspects of safety but
which are going to other priorities. We will all have our favourite list, but
lets not pretend this is an issue of resource availability: it is one of
priorities that are determined by political and economic systems that are not
sympathetic to the needs of people, but designed to support those who are
already rich and powerful.
good wishes
Terry
--
Terry Cannon
Reader in Development Studies &
Research Fellow of the Natural Resources Institute
School of Humanities
University of Greenwich, Old Royal Naval College
London SE10 9LS
020 8331 8944 or 8800
+44 20 8331 8944 or 8800
======================================================================
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registered in England (reg no. 986729).
Registered Office: Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, Greenwich SE10 9LS
Quoting Parminder Singh <[log in to unmask]>:
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Forwarding Paul's query.
>
> Regards,
>
> Parminder
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Paul Grundy
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 11:10 AM
> Subject: Update on disasters in Myanmar and China
>
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> My apologies if you receive this more than once, or if you have received the
> attached directly from another source.
>
> We are still reeling from two terrible natural disasters. To add to the
> media coverage I thought it of value to send you two presentations by Walter
> Hayes of the Global Alliance for Disaster Reduction. In addition I have
> attached an analysis of the losses from natural disasters in 2007 by the
> Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), Louvain.
> Already in 2008 the statistics are worse than 2007.
>
> I single out one point for comment - the schools. Instead of being refuges
> and emergency accommodation after disaster strikes they have become tombs.
> The greatest source of grief in the communities affected.
>
> I have tried - unsuccessfully so far - to excite interest in retrofitting
> schools on coasts and in earthquake prone regions so that they become refuges
> and sources of emergency accommodation. All this to happen before disaster
> strikes. There are five major obstacles:
>
> 1.. lack of awareness of community risk, where the impact of a disaster is
> greatly magnified compared with an individual risk,
>
> 2.. lack of knowledge on how to retrofit existing buildings using local
> community resources,
> 3.. lack of research to provide the knowledge on how to retrofit,
>
> 4.. lack of government commitment to effect change, and
>
> 5.. lack of resources and funding.
>
> Any suggestions?
>
> Paul
>
>
> --
> Emeritus Professor Paul Grundy, AM
> FIEAust, CPEng, Honorary Member, International Association for Bridge and
> Structural Engineering
> Chairman, Joint Working Commission for Disaster Reduction on Coasts
> http://civil.eng.monash.edu.au/drc
> Department of Civil Engineering, Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia
> Tel/fax: +613 9877 6695. Mobile: +614 1931 1533
> Mailing address: 65 Gardenia St, Blackburn, VIC 3130, Australia
>
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