PREPARING NIGERIAN BUILDINGS FOR POSSIBLE EARTHQUAKES.
FOLLOWING THE COLLAPSE OF SO MANY BUILDINGS RESULTING FROM THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE IN TURKEY – SYRIA, THE ATTENTION OF THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT AND PROFESSIONALS IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IS DRAWN TO THE ARTICLE BELOW, PUBLISHED IN 2016 BY THE BCPG.
Barely a year when Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG) drew the attention of the world to the possibility of Nigeria experiencing earthquake and the need for the Nigerian government to be proactive by reducing the spate of substandard building construction across the nation, mild earthquakes, recently, occured in parts of Oyo, Bayelsa, Rivers, and Kaduna states. Vibrations accompanying the earth tremors resulted in the collapse of mud houses and infliction of visible cracks in modern buildings within the affected areas. This development has clearly ossified the harbinger on the possiblity of Nigeria having an earthquake induced disaster in the near future.
The perception that Nigeria is safe or far from seismic active regions is no longer tenable. Shaki in Oyo State has been subjected to intermitent earth tremors this year and climaxed in the first week of June,2016. Communities in Bayelsa and Rivers on July 10, 2016 had a similar experience but in this case due to prolonged effect of oil exploitation. Records from the seismological station of the Centre for Geodesy and Geodynamics (CGG) show that the earthquakes that occured in Kwoi area of Kaduna State on 11th and 12th September, 2016 ranged from 2.8 to 3.1 in magnitude.
Shaki and Kwoi towns are located along the Ifewara – Zungeru fault Zone, which is linked with the Atlantic fracture system. The fault transcends the South-West and North-West of the country, thereby making that stretch of land susceptible to seismicity due to stresses generated within the earthcrust, that is, patial reactivation of fossil plate boundaries.
Earth tremors occured in Nigeria in 1933,1939,1964,1984,1990,1994,1997, 2000, 2009 and now 2016. A series of earth tremors might not necessarily lead to the high intensity earthquake, a reason that should douse our fears.
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However, a study carried out by Dr. Adepelumi Adekunle Abraham of the Department of Geology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile- Ife and his team exacerbated the portentous signs in the following grim words, “After the earth tremor of 2009 in South- Western Nigeria, (which) was felt in several towns and villages in Oyo, Osun and Ogun States, a detailed short-term propabilistic earthquake prediction was carried out by our team, our findings indicated the probability of earthquake occurrence in the study area between the year 2009 and 2028 increased from 2.8% to 91.1%. The result also showed that the probability of three events occurring has the highest likelihood within the predicted years. Also, found that the Weibull probability density model predicts a damaging earthquake (Magnitude 5) before year 2020.”
Buildings are the bastion of physical development which is used to adjudge a nation’s rung in the global socio-economic ladder. Investors in buildings should be concerned about the durability of the buildings they are providing fund for. The longer a building exists, the more the revenue or value the owner derives from it. Indubitably, a solidly constucted building can stand the test of time.
The wise learns from the errors of others. Nigeria must not continue to repeat the mistake of Haiti and Nepal where stringent building regulations were lacking, thereby aggravating the effects of the earthquakes on buildings. In an eathquake disaster, substandard buildings have always been the major cause of high death toll. And unfortunately in Nigeria, the National Building Code is legally and practically not in exstence just as it was in Haiti.
A 5.7 magnitude earthquake occured near Bukoba town in Northern Tazania on September 10, 2016. According to local authorities, all fatalities were people ‘in brick structures’ that collapsed. Lesson from this experiece is a warning to prospective homeowners and developers in Nigeria that they should endeavour to follow due process and avoid quakes. Government should pay due attention to building constrution from the scratch by strenghtening ministries of physical planning and development control, and also uphold the tenet of profssionalism in the nation’s building industry.
The BCPG hereby reiterates the call by the Director of Centre for Geodesy and Geodynamics, in Toro, Bauchi State, Dr. Tahir Abubakar Yakubu that Nigerian government should establish additional seismological stations to monitor crustal movements in the identified earthquake prone areas.
A nation without an effective national building code will end up in ruin in an occurence of an earthquake. Enforcement of building regulations without compromise will prevent serious calamity in the future. Many nations, including USA, Japan and Australia have been constructing earthquake resistant buildings in their seismic regions. Nigeria can immitate such preventive measures. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Bldr. Kunle Awobodu,
National President,
Arc. George Akinola National Publicity Secretary,
Building Collapse Prevention Guild. BCPG.
October, 2016.
Press Release by Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG)
