Seismic dangers

The disaster in Turkey and Syria holds lessons for India

With the death toll crossing the 19,000 mark, the earthquake and its aftershocks in southern Turkey and northern Syria stand as one of the worst disasters in the region in the past decade. Indians may have legitimately taken pride in “Operation Dost”, the rescue mission carrying personnel and supplies India has sent to Turkey, joining several developed nations in the effort. But coming as it does less than a month after the Himalayan town of Joshimath hit the news for the rate at which it is sinking, it is worth wondering whether India, with an economy roughly three times that of Turkey, is any safer from the kind of disaster that hit the Eurasian nation.

Like Turkey, large parts of India are located in lively seismic zones. In Turkey — and parts of the Arabian Plateau — almost the entire nation is situated along fault lines created by the northern and southern Anatolian plates, which come into contact with the Eurasian and Arabian plate, respectively. Earthquakes, thus, have been so frequent as to find regular reference in imperial Ottoman and modern Turkish literature. In India, where the collision of the Indian and Eurasian plates has thrown up the Himalayas, the world’s highest mountain range, the government data suggests that 59 per cent of India’s landmass is prone to earthquakes of varying intensity. Cities and zones in eight states and Union Territories are in the highest risk zones, and this includes the National Capital Region (NCR).

To be sure, India has had its share of earthquake-related disasters and tragedies in the past 20 years to understand the risks. Yet, as Joshimath’s predicament has shown, those lessons are yet to be absorbed. This much has been clear from the earthquakes that hit states as varied as Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Uttarakhand. But in the burgeoning urban sprawl of the NCR, which is expanding into neighbouring farm land at warp speed, buildings of ever increasing height, constructed often with sub-standard material and on the basis of dubious permissions granted by local authorities, stand as monuments to the perpetual dangers of unplanned expansions. Both the urban agglomerations of Delhi and Gurugram, home to 30-storey tower blocks, are located on multiple fault lines. A high-intensity earthquake could result in catastrophic levels of death and injury. In the fragile Himalayan system, big dams and power projects have all extracted their toll in disasters such as cloud bursts and glacial melting. The project to build motorable roads through the unstable landscape of Uttarakhand up to 10,000 feet and above for pilgrims to reach hallowed Hindu shrines offers another example of political compulsions overriding public safety concerns.

In Turkey, the problems of poor construction quality in the mountainous southern region have been compounded by the inadequacy of the government’s patently insubstantial intervention. Funds from taxes imposed on the Turkish people as far back as 1999 to finance earthquake-related rescue and reconstruction appear to have vanished from Ankara’s treasury, prompting sharp questions from the Opposition on the integrity of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces elections in June this year.