Major magnitude earthquakes would hit countries every now and then.
Knowing that the US has many dangerous fault lines, one can ask, how prepared is the Federal government when a large seismic activity would cause fault lines to move violently?
How does your town, city, or country prepare for disaster?
If major infrastructures were destroyed, what are the options stipulated in the risk management plans?
Earthquake events
In 2016, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit the southern part of Japan, specifically in the Kumamoto Region, Kyushu Island, which resulted in several casualties, hundreds of injured and homeless. Barely 24-hours after, a 7.3 magnitude aftershock rocked the same area and resulted to a much greater number of casualties, injured and homeless.
Just following Japan’s earthquake, a much greater 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit Ecuador. This also resulted in hundreds of lives lost, thousands injured and homeless. This left the government with a big question on how and when they can go back to their normal lives knowing that the government itself is dealing with very much damaged public infrastructures.
In these two earthquakes, the roads and highways were the most important public infrastructure that was really affected. One can see tilted roads, overlapping highways, or, worst, roads cut off by landslides or portions vanishing down ravines and cliffs. Some bridges were destroyed and unpassable.
These damages on the roads and highways hindered greatly the government to dispatch aids. It would lead to longer repair and rehabilitation of government infrastructures, including residential and business establishments.
Preparedeness
In preparing for calamities like devastating earthquakes, infrastructure asset management strategies involve risk asset management that is robust.
Part of the asset management preparation is having a more realistic inventory of infrastructure, knowing and managing the conditions of the assets, and resiliency.
Expectations
Whether we like it or not, natural calamities would render us helpless without any readiness and planning. Having an updated infrastructure management plan and keeping authorities informed of this plan is part of the disaster-preparedness that a town, city, or state can do.
In places like in California where huge fault lines are considered very active, especially the Hayward-Calaveras-San Andreas faults connection, it is highly probable that a big earthquake could happen.
This presents a challenge on the infrastructure asset management plan updating, which part of it may include a section on emergency response planning, which is probably being reviewed regularly.
Equally important too, part of the asset management strategy for big disaster events is to involve the community in the awareness, readiness, and preparedness in the risk-reduction plans way before these calamities happen.
PHOTO CREDITS:
Aso Ohashi Bridge by Hideki Kimura – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
San Andreas Fault by John Wiley User:Jw4nvc – Santa Barbara, California – Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link