Around 140,000 people died in torrential floods in Bangladesh in 1991. Seven years later, the country was hit by floods that persisted for a longer time and covered a larger area than those in 1991, yet only 1,000 died.
This is what The New York Times calls "taming disasters." Bangladesh increased its ability to react to killer floods in the seven years between the two disasters, showing that although natural disasters cannot be controlled, they can be tamed.
It is possible to substantially reduce damage to life and property caused by natural calamities. This is what the UN hoped to achieve by naming the years between 1989-1999 "The Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction."
Kerry Sieh, a professor at the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, says that scientists are still unable to accurately predict earthquakes, but modern seismology labs can "predict the location and intensity of devastating earthquakes."
Why do earthquakes cause the damage they do? Sieh says the blame lies with building codes and standards.
"Inferior and substandard structures caused a great number of deaths in the earthquake in Turkey," Sieh says. "Buildings built on fault lines should be held to higher standards. Existing structures should be held up to stringent requirements as well as new buildings."
This lesson is important for Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston, as well as for Istanbul and Taipei.
More than a week has already passed since the 921 earthquake. Relief efforts are coming to a close, and reconstruction work is just beginning. In addition to expecting government efforts to be on a scale approaching the severity of the earthquake, the government should revise building codes throughout Taiwan to match what occurred in the most severely-struck areas.
Earthquakes strike Taiwan frequently, and each minor quake has the potential to cause severe damage. Builders who cut corners -- in collusion with the government -- allegedly caused countless deaths in the 921 quake. Yet another reason for the cataclysmic destruction caused by the quake is that building codes were not set to match our knowledge of potential earthquakes. One hopes that the recent earthquake will allow central Taiwan to be rebuilt as an earthquake-proof area and not as a region filled with half-collapsed buildings. We owe it to the victims of the quake to make sure this happens.
Massive reconstruction must follow the destruction left by the quake. One hopes that the rebuilding will bring with it a new vitality and a sense of the future for all Taiwanese.
Nan Fang Shuo is the publisher of The Journalist magazine.
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