Procrastination may cost your life

THE eagle statue that crashed to the floor during the earthquake is the best possible symbol of our economic fragility. One minute the sculpture of Gwaihir the Windlord is happily soaring through Wellington Airport, a splendid symbol of Wellywood and the capital’s digital economy. The next minute it is beak-up on the floor, the weightless economy reduced to a tonne of inconvenient metal.

So once again we are forcibly reminded that we live in the Shaky Isles and that the capital is the most dangerous part of them. This time the main quake was in the Wairarapa and Wellington escaped with a grounded eagle but little other damage. ‘‘I just feel that we’ve probably dodged a bullet,’’ says Wairarapa civil defence controller Kevin Tunnell. That goes for all of us.

Until the big one comes, of course, as one day it inevitably will. Monday’s shake is also a reminder that Wellington has absolutely nothing to feel smug about. The Cook Strait earthquakes of July and August last year caused little damage and the city’s civic leaders congratulated themselves on the fact. But that was luck and nothing else.

If Monday’s quake had been large and close to Wellington, a lot more than ornamental eagles would have fallen. Engineer Brendon Bradley, who is leading a detailed study of how 10 Wellington buildings responded to the quakes, said in November the magnitude 6.6 Seddon quakes subjected the CBD to just one-seventh of the shaking in Christchurch in 2010 and 2011. ‘‘If anyone believes that Wellington buildings are significantly better than Christchurch’s [they are] misguided.’’

Wellington City Council has been quicker than others to list its earthquake-prone buildings, and to make this information public. But that merely shows just how vulnerable we will be in a major earthquake. And last year the Government actually extended the time given to owners of earthquakeprone buildings to bring them up to code. It had originally proposed a 10-year period; after protests from owners, it extended the time to 15 years.

There was an argument for doing so. There are said to be perhaps 25,000 such buildings in New Zealand, and the cost of strengthening them is estimated at about $1.7 billion. There is obviously a judgment to be made here about cost and safety, and the judgment is based on crucial lack of knowledge.

We don’t know when the big one will hit.

The Government knows that if a major earthquake does come before the strengthening is done, it will bear a lot of the blame.

Meanwhile, employers and building owners have the duty to improve their buildings as quickly as their means will allow them, and homeowners must also do what they can. Once again we have been reminded that planning for the earthquake is everyone’s responsibility.

An earthquake survival kit is fairly inexpensive and easy to assemble and maintain. Wellington City Council also offers a house inspection, for a price, to show up any earthquake weaknesses. It’s easy, of course, to procrastinate and hope. But it’s a strategy that might cost you your life.