Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

The Iran quake

Sir, — The earthquake in Iran and the untold sufferings of the victims call for help from all countries. Tragically, our own memories are short. Even after the Latur and the Gujarat quakes,we have not taken any substantive efforts to retrofit the existing houses and buildings to mitigate the fury of quakes in the future. Soon after the Gujarat quake, the authorities regraded the quake zones upwards for purposes of design parameters. But there has hardly been any follow-up in the matter. It is time people were told what needs to be done to the existing stock of housing and structures to withstand quakes and the design requirements for new structures. There must be a defined authority to enforce retrofitting in the existing structures. It may not be out of place to point out that many government buildings, including the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, are situated on a quake-prone zone but no action is being taken.

M.V. Murugappan,
Chennai

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• The Iran quake
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