Dear Colleagues,

Forwarding on behalf of Paul..

Regards,

Parminder

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> This email is addressed to to those who are interested in disaster risk
> reduction (DRR), addressing the particular topic of earthquake
> resistance in schools.  I am following up a flurry of discussion on this
> topic after an email I sent on the obstacles to building seismic
> resilience in schools received a wider circulation and response than I
> anticipated.
>
> Encouraged by that response and the helpful remarks I am attaching a
> discussion paper addressing the obstacles previously mentioned.  This is
> deliberately timed to reach you before the International Disaster
> Reduction Conference in Davos, 25-29 August,  where I hope to meet many
> of you who are currently just names on reports which I have read,
>
> If I cannot meet you in Davos there might be an opportunity afterwards
>    Geneva-Lausanne 30 August - 2 September
>    Cambridge, UK    4-6 September
>    London                 8-11 September
>    Chicago                13-19 September
> (I don't spend much time in the northern hemisphere.  Need to seize the
> day.)
>
> You will see from the attached that I feel that on the structural side
> of retrofitting we in DRR are not performing well.  It is interesting to
> note that the people of Aceh have shown great resilience in getting back
> to normal, or to an even better state in some cases than before the
> tsunami.  But the weakest performance was in housing, where 42% of the
> houses built after the tsunami were not habitable.  Of this 42% some
> were made habitable with further expenditure and retrofit.  The rest
> were abandoned or demolished.
>
> For an informative review of village recovery in Aceh go to
> www.indo.ausaid.gov.au/featurestories/acarpreport.pdf
>
> Best regards
>
> 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
>
>