India: Before earthquake drill, experts point to bigger worry: Lack of structure audits
By Rao Jaswant Singh
GURUGRAM: As the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) has planned to conduct a massive earthquake evacuation drill on Friday in an attempt to examine the response time taken by various agencies, several experts flagged concerns about thousands of buildings in the city, including apartments, schools and hospitals, which have not been built following the National Building Seismic Code. They said these buildings may suffer serious damage during earthquakes.
Experts said structural audit of such buildings, which is mandatory as per the norms, should be carried out in every three-five years to minimise casualties during earthquakes.
Director of disaster management department Abhay Kumar Srivastava said no structural audit had been done in Gurugram so far. He also said soil testing, audit of architectural and structural design and testing of construction material should be carried out without fail as per the norms before constructing a building.
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