Disaster studies expert: We are not prepared for quake

If a 7 or 8 magnitude quake were to hit Israel, it could cause more damage, loss of life than any war Israel has fought, expert says.

By GIL STERN STERN SHEFLER
Japan earthquake fire 311 (R) (photo credit: REUTERS/Yomiuri Yomiuri)
Japan earthquake fire 311 (R)
(photo credit: REUTERS/Yomiuri Yomiuri)
As bad as events may seem in Japan in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake and tsunami that has killed untold thousands and caused critical failures at nuclear power plants, Prof. Avi Kirschenbaum, a disaster studies expert at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, thinks it could have been much worse.
If stringent building codes had not been enforced by authorities on the quakeprone island, then the death toll could have been even higher.
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“Earthquakes don’t kill people; buildings do when they fall,” he said. “The tsunami is probably a lot more dangerous than the earthquakes, especially in Japan, where building codes have been in place. You saw that big buildings did not fall during the earthquake, but you can’t build a wall along the entire sea.”
Kirschenbaum currently heads BEMOSA, a European Union-funded research project aimed at improving security in airports, lectures about disaster preparedness at the University in Haifa and has written several books on the subject. He said Japanese authorities’ preparedness mitigated the effects of the disaster, but had less flattering words, however, for their Israeli counterparts.
Asked if Israel were ready to deal with a major earthquake, Kirschenbaum gave an unequivocal answer.
“I can tell you very clearly, we’re not,” he said. “The first things which needs to be improved are the building codes – and the government understands that,” he said.
“But the incentives to upgrade buildings by offering residents to build another floor and, in the process, strengthen their foundations are not working.”
Kirschenbaum said that in the event of a seven or eight magnitude earthquake, buildings built prior to the 1990s would be at great risk.
“During the 1980s, there was a weak California building code but that disappeared during the 1990s,” he said.
The last relatively big earthquake in Israel took place in 2008 when a 5.3 magnitude shake rocked the region. No fatalities or major damages were reported at the time.
However, in the 19th century, a major quake struck the region, reducing the northern cities of Tiberias and Safed to rubble.
If a seven or eight quake were to impact Israel, Kirschenabum reckons, it could cause more damage and result in more loss of life than any war Israel has ever fought.
“The chemical plants in the Haifa area, which are on a rift coming down from Lebanon, will probably blow up,” Kirschenbaum said. “It would be as if Hezbollah rained down on them all these rockets and it would simply blow up.” The 68-year-old academic, who was born in the US and immigrated to Israel 40 years ago, said the Israeli government was also neglecting the psychological aspect of dealing with disasters.
“One of the things they are not preparing is the people,” he said. “In Japan, they do it on the community level. The basis for our survival in Israel is our families and communities and then the municipality.
All disasters in Israel are local and in Israel, we have a robust system of communication which we have to rely on, and with the Japanese, it’s the same way.”