our proposed uRespond concept sketches for the “random hacks of kindness” event

simple rapid user input

mapping of local user updates

current emergency response protocol

tehran’s minor earthquake on saturday

Tehran experienced a minor earthquake (Richter magnitude 4) on Saturday at 2:23 pm local time (http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=205750). It seems that most Tehranies felt this shake. There is now a widespread fear of aftershocks and possibly bigger earthquakes due to more activities on the Eivanaki fault in southeast Tehran. Since information on the historical activity of this fault seems to be limited, it is difficult to make accurate probabilistic predictions on the likelihood of an aftershock. But it is certainly possible and quite likely to have another earthquake soon (not necessarily related to this particular fault movement). Tehran sits on major active faults and suffers from a large seismic risk due to fault activity, poor construction practice, and large population. The occurance of this recent minor earthquake may have influenced the stresses in the surrounding faults and might have increased the existing seismic risk facing Tehran.

 

Tehrani residents, engineers, contractors, general public, please be aware and pay attention to this important risk that you will have to deal with sooner or later. To learn how to protect yourself before, during, and after an earthquake, visit this site by FEMA: http://www.fema.gov/hazard/earthquake/index.shtm. 

In two of our previous posts, we also had some good discussion on earthquake preparedness in Tehran:

http://tehranshake.wordpress.com/2007/08/02/121/

http://tehranshake.wordpress.com/2007/08/28/what-to-do-before-during-and-after-an-earthquake/

Tehrani engineers, architects, and contractors: I assume that you already know how to make earthquake resistant structures in a cost-effective way. If you have questions/concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I will try my best to send you information on the current state of practice (in structural and geotechnical design) for your specific project. If you are not convinced about the risks facing your city and need more information on the probability of earthquakes in the coming years, also please don’t hesitate to let me know or contact someone at IIEES in Tehran (http://www.iiees.ac.ir/). Keep in mind that you are responsible for your building, and negligence and lack of knowledge are not acceptable any more.

tehran disaster management

[By SD]   I came across this link yesterday and thought it might be interesting to TehranShake: www.tdmmo.ir

pakistan hit by quake

[By Shideh]   Pakistan suffered from a magnitude 6.4 earthquake today: about 500 people were killed and thousands were left homeless. I want to offer my condolences to the people of Pakistan and particularly to those who were affected. It is truly heart-breaking and it’s a shame that we still witness such losses in a century of information technology and knowledge.  

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of Daily Nation

 

 

The tremor is reported to have flattened entire villages (click here for more detail).  The earthquake struck southwest Pakistan before dawn as people were preparing for the first prayer of the day. Many evacuated their homes after the first, smaller tremor shook their houses, went outside and waited for awhile but returned back in because of cold weather. It is reported that about 20 minutes later the large earthquake hit, flattening many houses and killing hundreds.

 

The earthquake was located about 60km northeast of the provincial capital Quetta.  Timber and mud with heavy walls are common construction materials in the area. The challenge now is to provide food and shelter to those who survived – in this cold weather. The ability of the government to respond effectively to the people’s urgent needs is questionable. Click here for news.

 

This earthquake affected a few villages in Pakistan, but it is yet another warning to every village and city in the region where active faults are present.  All these cities will face the same fate sooner or later when the next earthquake hits (in Pakistan, India, Iran, Turkey, etc.).  Why does it remain to be a challenge to understand the risks that we are facing and to act promptly?

another reminder: building collapsed in tehran

[By Shideh]   A 7-story building in Tehran collapsed today, sadly killing at least 3 people.  The design engineers and contractors have been arrested and they currently face trial. The mayor of Tehran, Mr. Qalibaf, has blamed the engineering community (Nezam e Mohandesi) for failing to properly oversee the design and construction practice and has requested the judiciary branch to penalize the responsible parties severely.

 

Photo courtesy of BBC

 

According to the ISNA news, the city of Tehran has evacuated the buildings around the collapsed structure until they are closely evaluated.

I’m glad that the media is giving this event proper attention and the responsible agencies are under the magnifying glass of national and international news sources.  It seems to me, however, that the city of Tehran, under the supervision of the new mayor, has improved to respond to such failures with a higher sense of authority and strength.  

I personally hope that the responsible parties, either engineers, contractors, or owners who did not design the building properly or did not completely evacuate the building on time after noticing the excessive settlement of the column, will be penalized with no room for bribery.  This is a fundamental step in training the engineering community toward ethical and responsible practice where negligence can lead to such life-threatening disasters. This event reminds me of an old post in which I wrote about a quote by one of my professors here in Berkeley: “you have the power of God in your hands as engineers, you can save lives and can take lives.”

 

My fellow aghaayoon va khaanoom haye “Mohandess”, let’s remember that with such power, comes great responsibility.

earthquake prone tehran | تهران زلزله خیز

[By Shideh]   Mr. Alireza Sarvi kindly sent us his article on the earthquake risks that Tehran currently faces; to download the complete article, please click on:  earthquake prone tehran

If you have difficulty downloading the entire file, please try downloading one page at a time as: part_1, part_2, part_3, part_4, part_5, part_6

 

It’s a great overview of Tehran’s geological and construction history and the risks involved; an insightful and critical study which you may find helpful.

immediately after an earthquake

[By Shideh]   A friend forwarded this link to me, which has been used at a few elementary schools in the Bay Area (California) — a quiz on how to act immediately after an earthquake. 

I found it extremely useful, as there were many questions that I didn’t answer correctly.  It’s important to note, however, that these are mostly procedures useful for California where most places are built properly for withstanding major earthquakes.  IIEES has published more applicable preparedness packages for Iran and countries with similar methods of construction.  I will explain those methods as soon as I find the details.

This is a fun way to test you knowledge and make sure you are prepared for an earthquake, if you live in California or other earthquake prone areas in first world countries.  Enjoy:

http://www.nwcn.com/sharedcontent/features/flash/quake/during.html

tehran’s official site

[By Shideh]   I came across the official website of the city of Tehran, while looking for some information regarding the duties and power of the Mayor.  This site provides detailed information on different aspects of life in Tehran ranging from history, policy, and urban planning to education, tourism, and much more, which you might find useful: http://www.tehran.ir

UN hazard mitigation game

[By Shawhin]  I just found a very neat website developed by the UN/ISDR (International Strategy for Disaster Reduction).  They have a series of “Stop Disaster” scenario games that you can play.  The game can be run off the internet on almost any machine.  It’s pretty cool.  It is a bit like the simcity game but geared toward disaster management and natural hazards.  Here’s the link:http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/home.html

Currently they have five natural hazard games: tsunami, hurricane, wildfire, earthquake, and flood.   And they are looking for support in creating more scenarios and in different languages.  More info at http://www.unisdr.org/.The website also has a lot of information on education, preparedness, and tips on what to do to mitigate damaging effects of natural hazards.  I haven’t been through the whole site, but it looks like a good resource, particularly for younger folks and kids.

children and earthquake safety

[By Shideh]  I came across an interesting presentation by IIEES’ (International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology) public education department in regards to earthquake safety and particularly children’s safety programs currently being developed in Iran:

http://www.iiees.ac.ir/English/Publicedu/school_safety_iran_case_study_davos.pdf 

 A few highlights: About 131,935 classrooms need to be reconstructed; 126,010 classrooms need to be strengthened; 39% of schools need to become safe… 

iran’s international conference on integrated natural disaster management – this february

Today, we received a message from one of the chairs of the 3^rd International Conference on Integrated Natural Disaster Management scheduled in Iran for this February (2008).  The main themes for the conference are: earthquakes, floods, droughts, landslides, and hurricanes.  UNICEF, the City of Tehran, IAEM, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Shahid Beheshti University, York University, and Cranfield University are some of the sponsors of this conference. 

The deadline for submitting abstracts and papers is passed but you can still register and attend the conference.  If you have a paper that you’d like to submit, I personally suggest you send it even though the deadline’s past.  For more information: www.indm.org.  The image below is from their flash intro:

   

snowy tehran

[By Shideh]  On Sunday, Tehran woke up to a heavy overnight snowfall which ended up shutting primary and secondary schools, blocking major roads, and canceling all domestic flights.  All government offices closed on Monday and Tuesday, according to IRNA news agency.  All roads in the northwest of the country were closed to traffic, meanwhile the international flights (which now run exclusively from Imam Khomenin International Airport) were delayed.  Tehran lies at an altitude of more than 1,000 meters above sea level and is regularly hit by heavy falls of snow in winter (even though there have been some winters without major storms).  State television has also reported that the snowfalls will continue in the coming days, while the cold weather has already created problems in the country with around a dozen towns suffering gas cuts last week (due to a surge in demand and cuts in exports from Turkmenistan)… 

 

Image borrowed from: www.tehrandaily.wordpress.com

what to do before, during, and after an earthquake

[By Shawhin]   Some important discussion has come up regarding this issue and particularly the post below from August 2nd, 2007.

Per the debate – the “drop, cover, and hold” method may not be advisable for residents of Tehran (and Iran) and other places where beuilding collapse is quite likely.  “Drop, cover, and hold” is based on US damage models where structures typicaly do not collapse and most injury is from falling or flying object. 

Please see comments to the August, 2nd post for more info!

peru shaken by earthquake

[By Shideh]  A magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit southern Peru, killing hundreds of people in the country’s second city, Areuipa, and possibly in the small villages near the coast (not confirmed yet).  The heaviest damage seems to have occurred in Arequipa, Peru’s “white city”, known for its beautiful architecture and churches.  It seems everyone fled their homes in panic and fear.  There are now thousands of people homeless in southern Peru. 

       

(pictures borrowed from ABC News and BBC) 

A relatively trusted source to help the victims: http://www.redcross.org/donate/donate.html 

I should add, though, that after the Bam earthquake many people were concerned that the Red Cross had a lot of over-head cost and they worried that a great portion of their donations would not go directly to the earthquake victims.  Any opinions on this? Does anyone know of other good organizations to donate to? 

It’s important to remember that phones do not work in such situations as the number of calls increases dramatically and many areas lose power and communication.  Text messaging may be a more effective communication tool in such cases.  Also, please see the post on “Hooman’s thoughts on emergency management and amateur radio” below.  This is increasingly becoming a hot topic.       

what to do during, before, and after an earthquake

[By Shideh]  In response to a number of requests, I thought it would be a good idea to share a few tips with all the Tehranis and people living in other earthquake prone areas on how to protect themselves during, before, and after an earthquake (if you don’t know them already). 

Here’s a good link which summarizes all the steps that you all need to know, so try to read through it carefully: http://www.fema.gov/hazard/earthquake/index.shtm

     

(sketches borrowed from http://seagrant.uaf.edu/features/earthquake/prepare2.html)  

sustainability and public transportation

[By Shawhin]

I’m heading to an interesting conference/workshop in a couple days in Seattle: it’s titled “sustainability and public transportation,” hosted by the American Public Transportation Association.  I’m sure we’ll be reviewing some models that would be applicable to Tehran: bus rapid transportation, light rail, and sustainable development.  Other topics such as transit oriented development (TOD) are probably less relevant, but should be interesting nevertheless.

I’ll post what we do at the workshop each day on tehranshake, so stay tuned.

More info about the conference can be found at: http://www.apta.com/conferences_calendar/sustainable/

If there’s anything in particular anyone would like to be discussed or asked about at the workshop, I would be happy to be of service – just let me know.

… hooman’s thoughts on emergency management and amateur radio

[Comment by Hooman Hooseinpour] Thanks so much for your response.

In fact, there are many issues which can be related to this topic, Communications Problems. This is one of the great obstacles that even developed countries face during large scale emergency events. Here, I don’t aim to discuss about issues related to emergency management and decision-making, in that there is so much I need to learn. What I am going to say is about a more reliable communication system, Amateur Radio. Let’s have a brief overview:

… response to hooman’s comment

[By Shideh]  (See Hooman’s comment on the welcome page.) I agree with you that we should eventually start thinking of ways to implement solutions that we discuss. I think we should have a separate section where we can discus ideas only on implementing infrastructure related solutions alone.  The challenge is how to make our ideas heard by the people who make policies and those who make sure the law is in effect. I will write more about this soon, as I still need to learn much. This may also be a great topic for discussion. 

It is true that in finding and implementing our solutions, we should abandon the kind of thinking that has lead us to the current state of our country (at least for its infrastructure). One of the great problems that we face, I think, is lack of hope for our future and lack of confidence in our own capabilities.