Recent Afghanistan Earthquake Highlights Urgent Need for Resilient Building Designs

Callaghan, Australia, Sep 2 (The Conversation) – The aftermath of a recent earthquake in Afghanistan has seen a rising death toll, currently reported by Taliban-led health officials to be at least 800 lives lost and another 2,000 people injured.

The quake struck shortly before midnight local time on Sunday in a mountainous area near Jalalabad, close to Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan. Though its magnitude was a moderate 6.0, the quake's shallow depth of 8km underground caused severe surface shaking and was followed by multiple aftershocks.

Most victims were sleeping indoors at the time and were crushed by collapsing buildings. The area’s remoteness, coupled with landslide-blocked roads, means that determining the true death toll could take time.

A Region Prone to Quakes – The region, nestled within the Himalaya and Hindu Kush ranges, is seismically active due to the ongoing collision of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. This fault line has produced some of the region's most devastating earthquakes, such as the 2015 Gorkha quake in Nepal.

Afghanistan frequently experiences earthquakes, particularly in the area currently impacted. Just last month, a quake in this region claimed more than 1,500 lives. In the previous year, over 1,000 lives were lost to another tremor.

Comparing magnitudes, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, of similar magnitude and shallowness, resulted in 185 deaths, illustrating a stark contrast with the hundreds of fatalities in Afghanistan's rural hamlets.

Earthquakes Don’t Kill People, Buildings Do – This well-known saying points to factors contributing to Afghanistan's high fatality rate. Rural Afghan communities often construct homes using local materials like earth, stone, and raw lumber, lacking access to sturdy, manufactured building resources. Such constructions generally do not adhere to engineered designs, building codes, or professional standards that prevail in more affluent nations, making them vulnerable to earthquake-induced damage.

Common construction methods in rural Afghan areas involve mud bricks or stone masonry, known as "monolithic" construction, incapable of resisting strong side-to-side shaking during quakes. Consequently, buildings collapse easily, causing significant casualties. Reports consistently highlight collapsed structures in the affected regions, similar to previous earthquake occurrences.

A Call for Design Change – Examples from neighboring countries show that economic constraints do not preclude adopting better earthquake-resilient designs. Following the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, Nepal's government instituted a National Building Code establishing minimum standards for basic earthquake resilience, using straightforward guidelines.

More than 25 years ago, Anand Arya, an Indian earthquake engineer, initiated a method to reduce earthquake risk in “non-engineered” buildings. His techniques involved adding continuous wall bands and reinforcements at building corners and around doors and windows, enhancing the strength of traditional constructions.

These cases prove that significant financial resources are not always necessary for improved earthquake resilience. Technical and institutional guidance can foster safety in economically feasible ways. Although not entirely earthquake-proof, such strengthened buildings could reduce damage and save lives.

Hope persists that this devastating earthquake will spur initiatives in Afghanistan to "build back better," enabling affected communities to be more resilient to future seismic events. (The Conversation) GRS GRS

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