Rescue operation and reconstruction of recent earthquakes in Iran

From February to May 1997, three devastating earthquakes occurred in rural areas of north and east of Iran. Considering the three consequent earthquakes in bad weather conditions and remoteness of the affected areas, the overall performance of the rescue and relief operations was excellent. In all these earthquakes 95 per cent of people were rescued within first 24 hours and by 48 hours all the affected people were settled in 70,000 tents as temporary shelters. Because of severe winter in north of Iran, reconstruction started one month after the earthquakes and 21,000 new dwellings (out of 29,000 planned) were built before the cold season started. The new seismically designed units are one storey with area of 40 to 60m2. The units were built by the owner with free interest loans, subsidized construction material and under government supervision. By July 1997, 1,500 units and by January 1998, 20,000 units were finished and people were moved in. The overall evaluation of the rescue operation to reconstruction process is satisfactory and the lessons learned during the Manjil earthquake were useful and played a key role in this success. This reconstruction method now so far proved to be successful in rural areas and can be used in future in order to save time, money and reduce social consequences. Gives a brief description of these earthquakes from seismological and structural point of view, evaluation of the rescue and relief operation and reconstruction programme. The authors highly appreciate all of the IIEES reconnaissance team for their valuable information, especially Dr M. Tiv, K.H. Nikzad, M. Abbasi, B. Tavakoli, M. Tatar, K.H. Hesami-Azar, F. Yaminifar, and Hosseinzadeh. • rescue and relief: Red Crescent of Iran and Armed forces; • temporary settlement: Red Crescent of Iran and Ministry of Interior; • reconstruction: Housing Foundation of Iran and Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. Considering the coverage and extent of natural disaster, they are categorized in three levels: National, Regional and Local, respectively, with the management of minister, province governor and local governor. In many cases the NDH manager acts as minister. 2.1 Rescue and relief For 72 hours after the occurrence of a disaster, all the related government agencies, Red Crescent, some divisions of armed forces, transportation, etc. will be under the command of the NDH manager. For example, for a national level event, under the direct command of Minister of Interior, the required armed force, air and land transportation, and emergency supplies should be provided for rapid rescue operation. This system which was developed and based on experience gained from the Manjil-Rudbar earthquake of 1990 and eight years of rescue operations during the war, is very flexible and gives all the necessary authority to the minister or governor for the rescue and relief operation. Also for each province, neighbouring (sister) provinces have been designated for despatching aids and rescue teams if it becomes necessary. The Red Crescent branch in each city varies in the size, type and the level of hazard stores and appropriate amount of emergency supplies. Red Crescent is responsible for providing the emergency supplies to the affected people for a maximum period of 45 days. However, some times they go beyond that and continue until the situation becomes stable. This system which so far has worked satisfactorily needs improvement, optimization and modification based on a scientific approach rather than just on practical or executive experiences. In this system there is no specific written strategy for each type of scenario. Therefore flexibility is required for the many unknowns and surprises that might happen during and after an earthquake. For example in most of the earthquake prone cities the vulnerability assessment has not been performed and disaster authorities do not have sufficient and reliable information on whether or not the city hospitals and other relief facilities can survive the earthquake. In other words most disaster relief centres are not specifically built for and their staff are not trained for a post disaster operation. With all this, only over capacity and beyond duty work of the people in the damaged areas made the rescue and relief operation in the past earthquakes a success. Therefore in these types of system the NDH manager (at all levels) needs the flexibility and authority to adjust the rescue operation based on the disaster situation as it has been done in the past. 2.2 Temporary settlement After the end of rescue and the relief operation of Manjil, Lordegan, Darab, Sefidabeh earthquakes, prefabricated shelters with 12 to 20 m2 were provided by government to each family during the reconstruction period. Living in these units might be acceptable for short periods, in good weather conditions and urban areas, but cannot fulfil people’s need for a long time and consequently add social problems. In the long term people start to add some part to the shelter either to compensate for the shortage of space, or protect themselves against the bad weather (Plate 1). This kind of living condition was very hard and has created many social and cultural problems especially when the reconstruction was prolonged for two to three years or even more as it has happened in the past. Overall evaluation showed that the temporary settlement not only creates social and economic problems, but also prolongs the reconstruction period and thus it was not a very successful experience. Temporary shelter can be good for urban living and in a camp form with appropriate infrastructure but not for rural areas. 6 Rescue operation and reconstruction of recent earthquakes in Iran M. Ghafory-Ashtiany Disaster Prevention and Management Volume 8 · Number 1 · 1999 · 5–20 Figure 1 Location of the recent earthquakes