Quake risk for Jakarta 'very high'

Quake risk for Jakarta 'very high'

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

In the event of a strong earthquake with its epicenter near
Jakarta, the damage to buildings and resulting casualties would
be far worse than in cities such as Tokyo or Vancouver, a report
from the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology
(BPPT) shows.

The Global Earthquake Safety Initiative (GESI) report shows
that in terms of "potential for buildings to kill people in a
strong earthquake", Jakarta's risk-rating was "very high".
Jakarta ranked 11th out of the 21 earthquake-prone cities
surveyed around the world (No. 1 the most dangerous, 21 the
safest), with Tokyo at 18 and Vancouver at 20.

The report, which was a result of cooperation between BPPT and
GeoHazard International (GHI), supported by the UN, was made to
get a complete picture of the risks here.

Heru Sri Naryanto, head of the BPPT's Disaster Mitigation
Technology Department, told The Jakarta Post on Monday that the
report showed that Jakarta had a disturbingly high risk of
casualties if a major quake were to hit.

It estimates that there is a 10 percent chance that many
buildings in Jakarta would collapse due to an earthquake and kill
up to 10,000 people sometime in the next 50 years.

Heru said that the risk was too high and disturbing,
considering that Jakarta had experienced a large number of weaker
tremors in recent years.

He added that last Wednesday's earthquake -- centered some 300
kilometers away and measuring a mere 5.5 on the Richter scale --
could have toppled many buildings if the epicenter was nearby,
because they had been built on unstable land, or in places where
the groundwater had been depleted.

He said that his agency had forwarded the report to the city
administration, and now it was up to the officials to take
preventive measures, such as imposing strict building
requirements, in order to significantly reduce risks.

However, he doubted that the administration alone had the
ability to take appropriate measures fast enough, therefore,
assistance from the people, especially building tenants, was
needed to boost the risk-reducing efforts.

Placidus Petrus, country coordinator for the National Fire
Protection Association (NFPA), an international codes and
standards organization, told the Post that tenants should urge
their building owners or management to comply with all
international safety standards for their own protection.

However, Gunawan Yonatan, associate director of the property
company PT Procon Indah, said that tall buildings in the capital
were strong enough to withstand earthquakes because they were all
designed to cope with certain levels of jolts.

He said that the city administration would not issue permits
for high rise structures to be built unless the design included
anti-quake measures.

He added that history had shown us that earthquakes in the
capital were never strong enough to cause significant damage to
high rise buildings.