Unsafe can’t be the new normal for Delhi buildings
quake, the Mexican government issued tough regulations to help make new buildings quake-proof. These include using a stronger mix of cement for the foundations, and making stronger walls and column, Time magazine reported last month.
Of course, some builders bypassed the system and built weak structures that could not hold. But experts agreed that the damage could have been phenomenal if it were not for the post-1985 building codes even if the enforcement was somewhat patchy.
Delhi, on the other hand, has not had any high-intensity earthquakes to shake us out of complacency. Very few, it seems, care that the national capital falls in extremely highrisk seismic Zone IV.
In 2001, the Us-based GeoHazards International put Delhi third — after Kathmandu and Istanbul — on the list of the world’s 21 most vulnerable cities, assessing each of them on parameters such as the fragility of buildings, fire and landslide potential, and the rescue and medical care abilities of local authorities.
If an earthquake of magnitude-6.0 hit Delhi, the report warned, at least 38,000 people would get killed.
Since 2001, the premonition came true for Kathmandu where an earthquake of magnitude-7.8 killed at least 8,000 people in 2015. Early this year, scientists warned Istanbul of ominous tectonic activities. Mexico City that was hit by a temblor last month was eighth on the Geohazards vulnerability index.
Sitting on a time-bomb, Delhi has worked up a perfect recipe for a disaster. Every third resident here lives in a poorly provisioned home in an illegal settlement. But even so-called ‘legal’ houses are not necessarily built legally.
Last week, proposing partial amnesty to illegal constructions that came up until a year ago, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation admitted that 90% of properties in its jurisdiction have undergone some sort of unauthorised construction.
Unfortunately, instead of trying to strengthen t he enforcement mechanism, the civic agency wants to regularise construction violations. All it will take is a certificate from a civil engineer vouching for the structural safety of the main structure. But who will inspect a system that allowed such illegalities in the first place?
Delhi’s biggest worry, however, is its unauthorised colonies where it isn’t unusual for four to six-storey structures to come up in a matter of weeks. To increase the carpet area, these buildings prefer thin walls and do away with loadbearing beams and pillars. Existing outside the city’s civic map, such buildings stay under the administrative radar until they start tilting or collapse.
The populist sop of regular- ising these neighbourhoods has been limited to providing basic civic facilities and property rights. But structural safety, the biggest concern, is not even on the political agenda. Delhi anyway has too many illegal buildings to even consider the option of forced eviction or mass demolition.
But nothing stops the enforcement mechanism from ensuring that new constructions follow the safety rules. As an official told me, with government agencies taking ownership of their vacant plots and private landowners preferring legitimate projects under landpooling, transit-oriented and low-density residential development, there is anyway little land available for the illegal market.
With the scope shrinking, there should be fewer illegal under-construction buildings to inspect and no excuse other than callousness for not enforcing compliance. In a city where house collapses kill more people than any other disaster in normal times, imagine what is in store when the earth trembles.
IN 2001, THE USBASED GEOHAZARDS INTERNATIONAL PUT DELHI THIRD, AFTER KATHMANDU AND ISTANBUL, ON
THE LIST OF THE WORLD’S 21 MOST VULNERABLE CITIES