A shaky future for the poor
When the houses in the Latur villages came crashing down, death, as usual, chose its social classes. The earthquake spared the thatched huts of the poorest and the cement and concrete houses of the rich. It was mostly the mud houses of those in between -- made of stone stuck together with black cotton soil -- that came tumbling down.
In some earthquake-prone areas of the Himalaya and northeast India, walls and roofs of mud houses are reinforced with reeds, bamboo or timber to prevent them from collapsing.
Says N Sen Roy, director general of the Indian Meteorological Department, "The loose soil, which reduces the ability of the buildings to withstand a strong shock wave, also increases damage potential."
The Central Building Research Institute in Roorkee had developed earthquake-proof shelters and offered them to the government after the Uttarkashi earthquake in 1992. However, despite recurring mild tremors in the peninsular region, no serious efforts had been made to set up such houses in the rural areas. Not that this would have made much difference: Even the cheapest such house costs about Rs 15,000, which is beyond most villagers.
However, S K Takkar, deputy director at the School of Earthquake Engineering, University of Roorkee, says, "Earthquake-resistant buildings can be built with only a 5 to 10 per cent increase in cost. But we are yet to make a study of the soil of western Maharashtra and most of the peninsular region." But even available knowledge for Himalayan houses has not been applied seriously.
Japan, UK and USA are devising ways to build earthquake-resistant skyscrapers. Western builders are confident that not many people will be killed in earthquakes in their countries because of damage-minimising techniques. On the other hand, future casualty rates in countries like India will be higher because of the growing population density and poorly designed houses and poverty.