20% of Puerto Rican schools open after quakes

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Puerto Rico opened only 20% of its public schools Tuesday after a strong earthquake delayed the start of classes by nearly three weeks as fears linger over students’ safety.

Only 177 schools were certified to open after engineers inspected them for damage caused by the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that killed one person and damaged hundreds of homes Jan. 7. The inspections were not to determine whether a school could withstand another strong earthquake or had structural shortcomings such as short columns that make it vulnerable to collapse, further worrying parents.

“Of course I am afraid,” said Marién Santos, 38, who attended an open house Monday at her son’s Ramón Vilá Mayo high school in the suburb of Río Piedras where officials gave her a copy of the inspection report and evacuation plans.

Her concerns were echoed by the director of the school, Elisa Delgado. Though she said engineers did a thorough inspection of the school, built in the early 1900s, they warned her not to use the main entrance in an evacuation because it leads to an area filled with gas lines.

The problem is that the other exits are too narrow to handle the school’s 450 students, she told The Associated Press.

“It’s not ideal,” she said. Engineers inspected 561 of the island’s 856 public schools, finding at least 50 too unsafe to reopen, leaving about 240,000 students out of school. Schools must be reinspected after any tremors of 3.0 magnitude or higher, according to Puerto Rico’s Infrastructure Financing Authority.

About 500 public schools in Puerto Rico were built before 1987 and don’t meet modern construction codes. A plan to retrofit all schools that need it – 756 buildings – would cost up to $ 2.5 billion.

CARLOS GIUSTI/ AP People whose homes are unsafe to enter after the magnitude 6.4 earthquake line up for lunch at Bernardino Cordero Bernard High School, which is being used as a shelter despite no electricity in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on Jan. 8.