Quake-hit buildings here still hang by a thread

When chief minister Narendra Modi expressed his worry at the tremor measuring 4.5 magnitude on the Richter scale on his return from Russia on Wednesday, many here in Kutch dismissed his concern.

“The people of Kutch continue to live for the past eight years in danger, even after number of multi-storey buildings have been declared as 'dangerous' to live in,” said Jaykumar Sanghavi, vice president of the state unit of the Nationalist congress said.

A DNA investigation reveals that there are more than 100 such buildings in four worst affected towns including 82 in Anjar and 27 in Bhuj.  It was in these towns-Bhuj, Anjar, Bhachau and Rapar where tall buildings had collapsed like a pack of cards. About 130 buildings had collapsed in Bhuj alone. In an official survey conducted by the state government in 2002, many buildings that survived the quake, were categorised as 'dangerous structures' and should be repaired or demolished.

"We had first demanded that all buildings should be demolished in a special official committee by the state government when one such building in Panchmukha Hanuman Street collapsed following a tremor. We also demanded that structures beyond ground plus one be removed from all the multi-storeyed buildings in these towns. But nothing has been done apart from representations to various agencies,” said Nalin Upadhdyay, member of the government committee and head of NGO, Bhuj Development Authority.
Upadhayay who himself is a civil engineer said the buildings too were now no longer safer as they had experienced more than 1,500 aftershocks in the past 8 years.

“The earthquake of 2001 was of a very high intensity which had already weakened the foundation of all multi-storeyed buildings in Kutch, the only seismic zone in the state. With more impact from aftershocks, these buildings are not safe. Also, none of the multi-storeyed buildings in the four towns were certified from structural-engineers. There should be a re-survey of all the exiting multi-storeyed buildings by competent structural engineers. The buildings can collapse anytime by future quakes which are not ruled out by experts," he said.

He said most of the unsafe buildings though were empty, their ground floor had shops. The seven storeyed buildings still had residents who had not been able to move to safer places because of their poor economic condition. He said the only solution was that construction of shopping complex for shop owners as was earlier planned and allotment of subsidised plots to other residents of such buildings along with building loans at concessional rates.

Sources say that this issue had been discussed in the government at a higher level, but it was feared that if such concessions were given in Kutch, other quake affected areas like Ahmedabad too would also demand them. But experts say that the case of Kutch was different in that  that Kutch was the only district in the state under seismic zone five. “The government should declare that the benefits would only for 2001 quake people living in the zone five,” said an expert preferring anonymity.

When contacted for comments on Thursday, Gunvant Vaghela, chief executive officer of the Bhuj Area and Development Authority (BHADA) admitted that this was burning issue and they were trying to find solutions. District collector RR Varsani, chairman of BHADA had visited such dangerous buildings before Diwali. “The buildings we visited were found to be safe. Also, there was also a huge problem of rehabilitation of so many people,” he said.