Lessons from Armenia and Sakhalin for Central Asia

Report of a Workshop in Almaty Kazakstan Oct. 1996
"Strategies for Urban Earthquake Risk Management for the Central Asian Republics"

The capitals of all of the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union are subject to damaging earthquakes. Almaty was destroyed twice, in 1887 and again in 1910. Devastating earthquakes occurred near Bishkek in 1885 and near Dushanbe in 1907. Ashgabad was totally destroyed in 1948, when more than 40,000 people died. Tashkent suffered from earthquakes twice, in 1886 and 1966.

During the last decade it has become clear that the actual values of seismic hazard and seismic risk in Central Asia are much higher than were indicated on the 1978 seismic zoning map of the Soviet Union and officially accepted in the building regulations for the area. There are several factors which support this statement.

1. All the destructive earthquakes of the last decade in the former Soviet Union occurred with a maximum intensity of 1 to 3 units higher than was expected from the official seismic zoning map. On this map, Almaty was located in a zone where intensity IX repeats once per 1,000 years; whereas intensity IX-X has been observed there twice in the last 110 years. The two most devastating earthquakes during the last decade in the former Soviet Union almost completely destroyed Septak and Leninakan (Armenia) in 1988 and Neftegorsk (Sakhalin Island) in 1995. Both towns were located in zones of expected intensity VII, whereas the observed intensity reached IX-X.

2. Microzonation maps of the capital cities showed the maximum expected intensity increasing from IX to X MSK in some areas, which occupied as much as 20-40% of the total city area. Construction in such areas is prohibited by the building code, but these regulations have been largely ignored and extensive construction has taken place in many of these regions.

3. Only after the 1988 Armenian and 1995 Sakhalin earthquakes was it recognized that the seismic resistance of Soviet-era buildings is significantly lower than was officially proclaimed. In the northern part of Leninakan, Armenia, more than 95% of frame-panel building collapsed and caused more than 9,000 deaths, out of total population of 25,000 in that part of the city. All sixteen of the large panel construction buildings in the same region remained standing. Both types of buildings were presumed to be designed to withstand intensity VIII. The Neftegorsk earthquake caused the total collapse of all seventeen large-block buildings in the town. The earthquake struck at night and almost all inhabitants of these buildings, about 2000 people, were killed. At the same time, buildings of other types of construction survived. Millions of people in Central Asia live in the same types of buildings as those that collapsed in Armenia and Sakhalin. If an earthquake of the same size occurs near one of the Central Asian capitals, the tragedies of Leninakan, Spitak and Neftigorsk will be repeated on a much bigger scale, unless urgent measures are taken.

4. The ability of the Central Asian republics to assess seismic risk has dramatically decreased since the collapse of the USSR. Financial support for science has been cut to a critically low level. Many experts have emigrated. Science and technical collaboration with Russia has been strongly curtailed. Scientists and engineers have become isolated, having little contact with their colleagues in neighboring republics or western countries. The lessons of Leninakan and Neftegorsk have alarmed many specialists in the Central Asian republics and abroad. Recognizing the urgency of addressing Central Asia´s urban earthquake risk, GeoHazards International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving earthquake safety worldwide, organized a workshop to review the actual parameters of seismic hazard; assess the vulnerability of the Soviet-era residential buildings and develop a strategy for reducing the earthquake risk. Support was obtained from a wide variety of organizations, including NATO, USGS and IRIS. The workshop was held in Almaty, Kazakstan, in October 1996, and involved more than fifty experts from across Central Asia and around the world.

Main results and recommendations of Almaty `96 meeting

In order to confront this crisis, projects must immediately be initiated that take into account Central Asia´s current social, political, and economic conditions, and address the following five broad needs:

• Inform the people most at risk.
  Responsible officials in each republic must undertake a detailed inventory and ranking of vulnerable buildings in their capitals and notify the occupants of Soviet-era residential buildings of the high vulnerability of some of these buildings.
  Rehabilitate existing buildings.
  A seismic rehabilitation program should be launched in the capital of each republic to upgrade all highly vulnerable multifamily residential structures.
  
• Regulate new construction.
  New seismic design codes should be written. Designs that minimize sensitivity to construction quality, such as large panel buildings, are desirable. Liability for illegal construction must be established.
  
• Unite and support local experts.
  Local experts are now underfunded and isolated. They must reestablish contact with each other and create new links with international colleagues through Internet connections, attendance at international conferences, subscriptions to professional journals, and participation in cooperative research projects.
  
• Continue and extend risk assessment.
  A network of strong-motion accelerometers should be established across each capital city and in standard buildings. Reasonable knowledge of all three components of seismic risk - seismic hazard, seismic vulnerability of buildings, demographic and economic information - have to be determined by modern techniques with acceptable accuracy.

Dr. Mustafa Erdik (Turkey) proposed to hold the next Central Asian meeting in Istanbul during the 8th World Conference "Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering" (SDEE`97) which was held on July 20-24, 1997 in Istanbul. The main goals of this meeting were:

• To coordinate the techniques for estimation of the seismological, engineering and economic parameters which are necessary for reasonable seismic risk estimation and mitigation in urban areas in Central Asia.
  
• To support direct contacts between western and Central Asian experts in planning and realization of the cooperative research programs and projects.
  
• To hold the discussions between Central Asia experts and representatives of international programs about the goals, forms and topics of future cooperation with the Central Asian republics.
  
• To help as many Central Asian experts as possible to participate in the World Conference in order to broaden contacts with the international science community.