Old buildings need quake safety checks

JAKARTA (JP): Senior architect Wiratman Wangsadinata said high-rise buildings constructed before 1971 needed review to make sure they met standard earthquake safety requirements.

The professor of Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) said yesterday that if buildings had not been designed to withstand quakes they should be demolished for the sake of the people using them.

He cited the old buildings standing on Jl. Gajah Mada and Jl. Hayam Wuruk downtown, Antara reported yesterday.

He said, however, sky-scrapers built after 1970 were relatively safe because the builders had met quake safety requirements in their applications for building permits from the city administration.

The city administration has a team to supervise and inspect building plans before issuing builders permits to develop, he said.

The team was set up in 1972 and since then the standard requirements have had to be met in order to build high-rise buildings or sky-scrapers. "Therefore buildings constructed before 1971 could be prone to quake damage."

Wiratman had earlier said that all the high-rise buildings in the capital had been designed to withstand quakes much greater than the March 17 tremors, which were between 5.8 and 6.0 on the Richter scale.

He said the intensity would have to be at least two and a half times that of the recent quake to damage buildings here.

"But I could not guarantee there would be no damage if the tremors reached 7 or 8 on the Richter scale. Such a quake could happen at anytime," he said.

Wiratman said there was special technology available to strengthen old buildings against quakes. "But that would be almost as expensive as constructing new ones. The special technology is reserved for historical buildings only." (sur)