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Terrorist acts in buildings can take the form of an explosion, an armed attack, a biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological attack or arson. Covert acts of terror, such as cyber terrorism, are possible. And the related threat to buildings can be countered on four fronts — intelligence, deception, physical and operational protection and structural hardening. The “IIT-K-GSDMA Guidelines on Measures to Mitigate Effects of Terrorist Attacks on Buildings” say that whether the building is new or old, the formal process of risk reduction has five steps — threat identification and rating; asset-value assessment; vulnerability assessment; risk assessment; and formulating mitigation options.

The guidelines focus much on countering terrorist blasts or explosions. They point out that India has codes related to blast above ground (IS:4991-1968). This standard provides a definition of blast.

Measures to make buildings earthquake-resistant can help in bettering the blast resistance of buildings. The Indian seismic code IS:1893(1)-2002, ductile detailing code for RC structures IS:13920-1993 and earthquake-resistant construction guidelines IS:4326-1993 deal with this aspect of building construction.

Provisions are also available for resisting wind effects on structures, particularly due to cyclones, and fire-resistant design of structures. But the current Indian codes do not deal with the progressive collapse of buildings. Research has to be taken up for developing suitable guidelines.Securing existing buildings against terrorist attacks involves four strategies with increasing levels of penetration:

• deter the attacker from accessing the target (passively by providing obstructions, or actively by using tactical moves and weapon deployment)

• detect the attacker before the penetration of the site or entry through building-access points (actively through security surveillance)

• deny the attacker the opportunity to cause a disproportionate damage to assets (by building hardening measures that reduce the damaging effects of blasts and biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological attacks)

• devalue the asset in such a manner as to have little consequence in terms of loss and thereby reduce the attraction for attackers to consider targeting the asset (by moving critical facilities/operations out of that asset).

T.R.

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