HAIFA (Press Release)–Another small earthquake was felt in the north of Israel this weekend, prompting an Israeli official to note that his country “experiences a large earthquake every 80 years on average; the last occurred in 1927. We are now in the area of statistical error.”
Dr. Avi Shapira, Director of the Israeli Ministry of Infrastructure’s National Steering Committee for Earthquake Preparedness, said at the 1st Academic Forum on Emergency Management at the University of Haifa:
“I hope that people believe me and my colleagues by now when we say that an earthquake will definitely take place in Israel and that it’s not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when.'”
Dr. Shapira pointed out that every location in Israel has experienced an earthquake at least once over the past 2,000 years, and that as experts are aware today, where there has been an earthquake in the past there will be another in the future. “Of course, it could be a few decades before a quake occurs, but it could also happen at any given moment,” he said. “We also know that the more time passes, the greater the intensity of the earthquake will be,” he added.
According to the Director of the National Steering Committee, the only way to minimize damages in an earthquake is by reinforcing structures, but here the gulf between the local and national government comes into play. “We have a good building standard in Israel, for which the local authority, via the local planning and building commission, is responsible. But the local commissions do not have the tools to examine and enforce the standard,” he said.
Dr. Shapira also related to TMA38 – the National Planning Guidelines for Seismic Strengthening, which was approved in 2005 and determines the steps that contractors are to take upon themselves for the reinforcement of existing buildings in return for building zones.
“TMA38 is in advance only worth something in places where land is expensive, but from a survey that we carried out, we found that even in expensive areas in central Israel, of 100,000 buildings that can be reinforced according to TMA38, only a few hundred have actually been dealt with. This is because of the greed and stupidity of citizens on the one hand and the local authorities’ refusal to grant additional building zones for a variety of reasons – some justified and some less,” he stated.
As many spokespersons have stated repeatedly, the importance of the local government as an authority is considerable, primarily in giving immediate response in the case of an earthquake. Head of Israel’s National Emergency Authority, Ephraim Karni, emphasized that there is no other body besides the local authority that can assist in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake. “It is irrelevant whether a local authority is a strong or weak one, a functioning or non-functioning one, prepared or not prepared – it is the local authority that will have to provide an immediate response,” he said.
Sharon Azriel, acting Union of Local Authorities director general, said the fact that the local authorities are the key bodies responsible for coping with emergencies has already become a slogan; but in actuality, the central government limits them to the point of absurd. “In the course of the Second Lebanon War, we developed a ‘town embraces town’ program, whereby towns in the center of the country adopted and assisted towns in the north. Within a few days of initiating the program, municipal heads from the center received a letter from the Attorney General of Israel prohibiting them from incurring expenses in order to host citizens of another town, and holding a mayor doing so personally accountable. This is an example of the extent to which we are considered a cornerstone,” he remarked, adding that more than 95 percent of the authorities are indeed prepared for a state of emergency, but owing to the financial cutbacks and budget limitations in part of the authorities, the topic of emergency preparedness is pushed aside.
“A mayor who has funds and has to choose between building a new promenade or park and establishing an underground command center that no citizen can see or is aware of – finds himself in a serious dilemma,” Azriel stated.
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Preceding provided by the University of Haifa