"Threat to New Delhi in major quake is largely ignored; India’s data show 9 in 10 buildings are threatened" by Muneeza Naqvi | Associated Press, January 29, 2012
NEW DELHI - The ramshackle neighborhoods of northeast Delhi are home to 2.2 million people packed along narrow alleys. Buildings are made from a single layer of brick. Extra floors are added to dilapidated buildings not meant to handle their weight. Tangles of electrical cables hang precariously everywhere.
If a major earthquake struck India’s seismically vulnerable capital, these neighborhoods - India’s most crowded - would collapse in an apocalyptic nightmare. Waters from the nearby Yamuna River would turn the water-soaked subsoil to jelly, which would intensify the shaking.
The Indian government knows this and has done almost nothing about it.
They sound like most governments.
An Associated Press examination of government documents spanning five decades reveals a pattern of warnings and recommendations that have been widely disregarded. Successive governments made plans and promises to prepare for a major earthquake in the city of 16.7 million, only to abandon them each time....
Fearing many buildings could crumble in ruins after a major earthquake, the Delhi government began work in 2005 with US government assistance to reinforce just five buildings - including a school and a hospital - it would need to begin a rudimentary relief operation to deal with the dead, wounded, and homeless. Six years later, only one of those buildings is earthquake-ready....
So where did all that tax loot go? Good f***ing-Christ!!!
Government engineers were sent to California to train. But the following year - with only the school made earthquake ready - all the engineers were taken off the project. They were reassigned to build stadiums for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, an athletic competition held in Delhi, said M. Shashidhar Reddy, the vice chairman of India’s National Disaster Management Agency.
The scale of the problem “really hasn’t sunk into the minds of the people,’’ Reddy said.
It never does until something happens.
Just last year, a Delhi government agency ordered all new home buyers to get a building safety certificate that would mark their homes as structurally sound before registering property. But it later withdrew the order, saying there weren’t enough engineers trained to conduct such inspections.
“That’s like saying let’s not have any traffic rules because we don’t have enough policemen,’’ said Hari Kumar, who heads Geohazards India, an organization that promotes earthquake awareness....
“At the end of the day, people at the helm of affairs are not doing anything,’’ said Anup Karanth, an earthquake engineering expert.
Except accepting a taxpayer-financed expense account and salary.
In its attitudes to disaster preparedness India is like many other poor nations - aware of the danger but bogged down by both sheer inertia and more immediate demands on its resources.
Like money for the military!
But Delhi faces immense earthquake risks. Last September, two minor jolts sent thousands of scared residents into the streets, and experts say a big one looms....
In a city and country growing at lightning speed with huge problems of poverty and hunger that need more immediate solutions, earthquake preparedness has never been at the top of the list....
Related:
"Quake drill tests crews in India’s capital" February 16, 2012|By Associated Press
NEW DELHI - It was the first-ever earthquake drill for New Delhi, where poorly constructed buildings, loosely hanging electrical wires, and narrow alleys that encourage traffic would mean heavy damage in a major earthquake....
--more--"
Something the AmeriKan media is ignoring:
"American targeted in Mumbai case
MUMBAI - An Indian court approved a request by prosecutors to charge a US citizen, David Coleman Headley, in the 2008 terrorist attacks, according to an official with the National Investigation Agency. The decision, which is the first step in seeking an extradition, sets up a possible confrontation between the United States and India. Headley has confessed in the United States to playing a major role in the attacks in Mumbai that killed at least 163 people, but he testified against another man tried in the attack to avoid both the death penalty and extradition to India (New York Times)."
Looks like the Indians have wised up to the intelligence agency false flags and covert controllers.
Related: Egypt Antagonizes AmeriKa
How the hell are we going to fight WWIII for Israel with no allies?
Also see: 15,000 die each year crossing rail tracks in India
I'll be ignoring a lot more in the Globe in the coming weeks.
