PROJECTS AND ACTIVITIES IN 3 YEARS FOLLOWING
KUTCHCH EARTHQUAKE OF JAN-26, 2001
(Since
NCPDP was overwhelmed with a large volume of activities
in the aftermath of Kutchch Earthquake there was little
time left to share its experiences with its well wishers
during the first three years. So it is only now that
we are able to do the needful.)
On January 26, 2001 when earthquake struck Gujarat,
NCPDP was in its infancy. It was set up barely four
months earlier as an outcome of brainstorming that was
done towards the end of Latur Earthquake Safety Initiative
to decide how we should continue our work on disaster
preparedness. It was decided that an independent organization
be set up that focuses primarily on disasters, especially
earthquake.
First Task
Soon
after NCPDP was set up the city of Bhawnagar and its
surroundings were shaken by a series of minor to moderate
tremors in our own State, namely Gujarat. A few days
of tremors created an unbelievable chaos and panic.
The local district administration was swamped by barrage
of questions and even anger of the local residents.
For NCPDP it was the first challenge where it could
put to use the six previous years of post disaster experience.
With the cooperation of the local NGOs and the local
administration NCPDP addressed several public meetings
sharing its know-how and answering a multitude of questions.
For many the tremors were an end of the world. For NCPDP
it was an interesting exercise in panic control. The
task was quite effectively carried out through the use
of discussions aided by videos and slide shows. The
focus was on reassuring the people through imparting
a scientific outlook about the tremors and what it had
resulted in to, what it all meant vis a vis the vulnerability
of the buildings, and the safety of the people living
them, and, finally, what the people could do to ensure
their own safety in a future earthquake. Subsequently,
under NCPDP’s guidance two houses were retrofitted
and a few masons were trained. For the first time in
Gujarat retrofitting became known to the engineers as
well as to common people.
NCPDP later approached the government requesting it
to take up an awareness and capacity building program,
especially in Kutchch where based on a previously observed
fifty year recurring cycle a major earthquake was imminent.
But the priority of the government was different and
soon it was all forgotten until barely three months
later when the Kutchch Earthquake struck to become one
of the most destructive earthquakes in the country.
Kutchch Earthquake
The
day the earthquake struck, NCPDP was positively the
only organization in Gujarat with an extensive experience
of post earthquake rehabilitation as well as the disaster
mitigation. But for the scale and the impact on urban
areas, the situation in the state was little different
from the one that was observed in the aftermath of other
earthquakes in the country. There was confusion and
fear everywhere. This time the fear was also in the
cities since never before the cities had witnessed such
large scale destruction and death in the country.
Immediate
Actions – Reaching Out
As an
immediate action NCPDP placed priority on helping people
develop a scientific angle to the occurrence of this
event and also helping them in getting some basic understanding
of the degree of damage to their buildings, vulnerability
resulting from that, and on the possible options available
including repairing, retrofitting and reconstruction
without going in to technical details. Some 10,000 copies
of a single page leaflet in Gujarati language were printed
on the fourth day of the earthquake and hand distributed
through various channels including local grocery stores,
NGOs, offices etc. The response to this simple leaflet
was overwhelming. People made photocopies and distributed
them. One individual even got our permission to reprint
them. We believe that as a result of this collective
effort nearly 30,000 copies got distributed.
Next, Rupal and I got access to
Doordarshan, the government’s TV channel. Many
householders get to watch only this since it is free
of cost and reaches almost every village. We both were
interviewed on the TV. Through this we were able to
address, in most simple language, a large number of
most commonly asked questions about earthquake including
why they damage buildings, how the damage can be reduced,
what action needs to be taken with the damaged building,
how the vulnerability can be reduced against future
earthquake through retrofitting, what happened in the
past earthquakes in the country, what type of myths
seem to prevail after a disaster etc. This half an hour
interview was watched by a large number of viewers across
the state, and we later learnt that it was greatly appreciated
simply because most viewers were able to relate to the
things we said. There was one more opportunity of reaching
the masses when I and the Secretary of Road & Building
Department of the Government of Gujarat were jointly
interviewed on Doordarshan. At that time we were able
to discuss the critical issues of rehabilitation program
that the government was about to initiate.
In the first month and a half we
were involved with The Action Research Unit (TARU),
a New Delhi based group, in the task of damage assessment
and evolving of disaster resistant technology packages
for a Government of India agency called Building Materials
and Technology Promotion Council (BMTPC). Because of
this we had all the information concerning the problems
with the local buildings and what could be done about
that. Hence, we decided to share some of this information
with the people on our own. As a result NCPDP published
two small and simple booklets in Gujarati for a common
man. One booklet was about the damage to commonly found
buildings in the state, and repairing and retrofitting
them to reduce their vulnerability against a future
quake. The other booklet was about constructing new
disaster resistant, affordable houses.
Once we had the printed materials
ready by April 2001 NCPDP geared up to provide services
to NGOs that wanted the masons trained in disaster resistant
masonry construction as well as the retrofitting of
the existing rural buildings, especially houses, in
their area of operation. The objective of this service
was also to promote retrofitting by making NGOs aware
of such an option, as well as the need to preserve the
existing buildings rather than demolish them as was
observed in earlier disasters. Among those who organized
hands-on mason training programs were Uththaan of Bhawnagar,
SWATI of Surendranagar, and Bhansali Trust of Radhanpur.
Through this process we were able to train a few hundred
masons.
Since Latur earthquake in government
rehabilitation programs the compensation amounts to
a house owner has been attached in some way to the degree
of damage to his house. It is, hence, important that
the house owners understand for themselves what precisely
the damage grading assigned to their house by a government
engineers implies. Such understanding could also help
people decide the type of action that needs to be taken.
Hence, NCPDP prepared a Visual Damage Identification
Guide and took it to the people for the first time in
the country. This four page brochure used photographs
of various types of damages to clearly convey to the
people this abstract concept of damage identification.
Once the immediate relief was taken
care of by the Government and other relief agencies,
the most important problem on hand was of constructing
the mid-term shelters in which the families whose houses
were destroyed could live until that time when the new
house is ready. The past experiences have shown that
the people, typically, do not wait for assistance from
outsiders in this aspect and quickly improvise something
from the resources on hand. It has also been observed
that many agencies move in to build such “temporary”
structures. These structures often consist of prefabricated
expensive structures made of metal, plastics and other
ready to assemble components. Such initiatives simply
do not take in to account the peoples’ own ability
to do something to take care of their immediate problem,
as well as the utility of such structures in long run.
What the situation really demands is some information
to make sure that the structure is disaster resistant,
and is built out of materials that can be later recycled
for building a permanent house. NCPDP published a four
page brochure showing a simple concept of improvising
a Disaster Resistant Midterm Shelter that acknowledged
the peoples’ own ability to build out of locally
available resources. Ten thousand copies were printed
and distributed in the quake affected villages through
NGOs. It was also placed on the website of TARU. It
was widely observed that the prefabricated temporary
shelters degraded in due course since it was not possible
for the people to maintain them. Today one sees the
remnants of such structures abandoned with no possibility
of recycling.
Important
Breaks
At the
time of the earthquake NCPDP had only fifty thousand
rupees in the bank. With that we knew that we could
pull on for a few months with thread bare staff of one
engineer, working out of our apartment. Fortunately,
within a couple of months another hundred thousand rupees
or so got added through donations from friends in India
and overseas. This gave us confidence that we would
be able to last for more than a few months. Since we
had no big grant we decided to offer services to NGOs
in the form of training of their engineers and masons
in disaster resistant construction as well as retrofitting
in return for a reimbursement of some sort. In the process
we worked with a few agencies and trained a few hundred
masons. Within a few months Kabir Thakor, an architect
friend, lent us a vacant apartment of his father in
law at a nominal cost. By that time running the operation
from our apartment had become unbearable. So this gesture
helped bring back some sanity to our day to day life.
Collaboration
with GSDMA
In April
2001 we got the first important break. We were approached
by newly formed Gujarat State Disaster Management Authority
(GSDMA) for providing them certain special services.
Our relationship with GSDMA was contractual. No grants
were involved. Instead, we were paid for the given task
based on the contract.
(a) Awareness Materials: The first
was to design awareness generation packages that included
ten posters, three brochures, two booklets and two videos.
All this was for the dissemination of the disaster resistant
building technologies. United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) funded the production of these materials. These
materials including approximately 50,000 copies of posters,
200,000 copies of brochures, and the videos, once ready
were taken by the government to the inhabitants of over
a thousand worst affected villages with the help of
some 30 video vans of the government. This was history
in making in India and we were an important part of
it. These materials were extensively used through out
the three years long rehabilitation program by the government
as well as NGOs.
(b) Sensitization Programs: Next
in July and August 2001 we organized for GSDMA a program
of sensitization of the village level government functionaries
in the disaster rehabilitation related issues. Workshops
were organized at block level in 12 of the 15 worst
affected blocks in five districts of the state. This
program was also funded by UNDP. The program was intended
to make the participants understand the importance of
suitable building technology, and the type of mistakes
that the people continue to make, and how they, as the
representative of the government, could make people
understand some of these issues.
(c) Engineer’s On-site Training:
In August and September 2001 this sensitization program
was followed by a program of on-site training of the
government engineers who were specially posted to man
the rehabilitation program. Engineers were trained in
classroom in some theoretical aspects. But their work
was going to be in the field most of the time doing
things that they had never done before. Hence, it was
critical to expose them to the ground realities of looking
at a damaged building and deciding on what is to be
done and how. They also needed to understand why such
damage occurs. We were the only agency in the country
having the necessary expertise. In the course of two
months we carried out training of 1200 engineers at
twelve locations across the quake affected regions.
At each location a building had to be identified, its
owner convinced and retrofitting work executed in a
part of the building for demonstrating in front of the
engineers and government functionaries, so that they
are able to understand the things that are otherwise
abstract to them. Incidentally, in three years ours
was the only training program that was imparted on-site,
just as it was in Latur back in 1994. Emphasis was also
placed on the importance of the load bearing vernacular
structures with load bearing masonry walls which constituted
the biggest chunks of houses in the quake affected area.
(d) Capacity Building Program for
Long-term Preparedness: From the issues raised by the
engineers during their training program a new ambitious
program evolved in January 2002 to prepare the village
masons to execute the improved disaster resistant building
technologies and to prepare the people to receive them.
The program covered over 475 most severely affected
villages in five districts of the State. It involved
facilitating of the construction of a disaster resistant
building that matched in looks with the other buildings
in that village, installation of roof rain-water harvesting
system on a public building, and retrofitting of a public
building by the Village Reconstruction Committee. It
also involved hand-on training of ten to fifteen masons
in each village at these sites, thus training over 6000
masons in all, and helping evolve a Disaster Preparedness
Brigade in each village through a series of meetings
and discussions, which in future could lead the efforts
of disaster preparedness in the village. The program
was primarily funded by The World Bank with some funds
coming from the Building Materials and Technology Promotion
Council, Government of India. The budget of this program
was Rs.7 crores (Rs.70 million or US$1.6 million). At
the peak of the project with all other activities going
on in parallel NCPDP had a team of nearly 120 engineers,
social workers, supervisors and managers. The project
ended in May 2003. It was, indeed, a path breaking project
that brought forth valuable lessons for ensuring the
success of the future disaster rehabilitation programs.
Reconstruction
& Retrofitting - Collaboration with Bhansali Trust
In
May 2001 there was another important break in the form
of Bhansali Trust of north Gujarat inviting us to provide
them with technical support in various rehabilitation
related activities. An understanding was evolved based
on mutual trust under which the Trust would reimburse
NCPDP for the expenses incurred in doing this work.
The interaction with the trust had started within a
couple of weeks of the earthquake. Through that it was
convinced of the viability of retrofitting option. As
a first step in May 2001 we helped them retrofit their
school in Vauva Village of Santhalpur Block of Patan
District. It was a two story school bigger than any
thing that we had retrofitted till then. The process
of retrofitting left the principal trustees of the Trust
as well as the school Head Master fully convinced of
the usefulness of retrofitting, reduction in their vulnerability
and economy achieved. As a result two full school campuses
located in Kutchch were retrofitted by them under our
guidance. In the meanwhile Bhansali Trust also took
up work of retrofitting over 600 Day-care Centres of
the government under our guidance in three blocks of
Patan District. The government had proposed to only
repair these buildings. But the Trust was so convinced
about the need to retrofit them that it decided to supplement
government funds to meet the additional expenses.
Later the Trust took up the reconstruction of four
villages, namely Sanva, Fulpara, Chitrod in Rapar Block
and Sukhpar in Bhachau Block of Kutchch District starting
in June 2001 using funds collected by it from all over
the world supplemented by the government funds. This
huge task included the total reconstruction including
houses, infrastructure buildings, roads and services.
NCPDP had found a believer in its own philosophy of
doing these things in a participatory manner. NCPDP
organized the interaction with the villagers to get
their feedback for evolving the house designs as well
as to evolve the neighborhood plans and neighbor selection
plan. It was a long process that resulted in a village
in which most everyone was happy about its location
and its neighbors. NCPDP also designed the infrastructure
buildings, roads, and drainage. The whole process was
supported by on-site production of some of the critical
materials to ensure good quality and desired pace. The
reconstruction work ended in April 2004. The total budget
of reconstruction was around Rs.30 crores (Rs.300 million
or US$67 million).
Long before the village reconstruction ended Bhansali
Trust was assigned the reconstruction of some sixteen
schools situated all over Kutchch, and also the retrofitting
of another 16 schools in far off corners of the District
in February of 2003. This was funded by the Prime Minister’s
National Relief Fund. This was at a time when both,
Bhansali Trust and NCPDP, were stretched to their limits
with the work already on hand. Hence, NCPDP was keen
to take the retrofitting work but not the reconstruction.
Bhansali Trust took it more as a challenge and was keen
to do both. As a result we too got roped in. Our task
was to guide the Trust in all activities, help appoint
the site engineers, and provide the overall project
management support. Including quality control. Although,
the total budget of all of it put together was Rs.7
crores (Rs.70 million or US$1.6 million), it turned
out to be a lot more difficult project since unlike
the village reconstruction, it was executed through
tender. The modalities of billing and quality control
were a lot more complicated. The geographical spread
added a great deal to the complications.
Shock Table
Program
In
September 2001 we were approached by United Nations
Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) – Kobe,
Japan to take up a confidence building program of Shock
Table Tests for the quake affected regions, similar
to the one that we had done in Latur in 1995. Professor
A.S. Arya was the technical consultant in this program.
The program involved comparative testing of typical
houses that are made by the people against the improved
new houses of same materials, and also a retrofitted
house on a platform that was built on rollers. Shocks
were given with the help of a tractor and were recorded
by a team of experts from Earthquake Disaster Mitigation
(EDM) Centre of Kobe. In all four tests were conducted.
Tests successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of
the improved technologies. Each test was a public event
attended by a few to several hundred people including
masons, engineers, NGO representatives and government
officials. This was the only program for which we received
a grant. A 20 minute video of this program was prepared
for large scale use. Later its video CDs were distributed
in nearly 500 severely affected villages that NCPDP
was interacting with. The CD has also been used by several
NGOs in their awareness and training programs.
Retrofitting
of Public Buildings – Collaboration with BMTPC,
Govt. of India
NCPDP
had worked with BMTPC in the past on a number of occasions.
BMTPC was keen to take up repair, retrofitting and restoration
of public buildings, especially those damaged by the
earthquake. The main purpose of this program was to
demonstrate the viability of retrofitting as well as
to train the local engineers and masons. Under this
arrangement in October 2001 NCPDP retrofitted a 70 years
old school building in the city of Ahmedabd, and later
in April 2003 an office cum store of Road & Building
Department of PWD in town of Patdi, in District Surendranagar.
From November 2001 to January 2002 we worked on a 125
years old heritage building that housed government offices
and its treasury vault in Rapar town of Kutchch. This
was a unique opportunity that provided us with a new
challenge. We had put to use all our understanding of
the vernacular building systems as well as of retrofitting
of the rubble masonry structures.
Summary
For
us, Rupal and Rajendra, the founders and Honorary Directors
of NCPDP the past three years in the aftermath of Kutchch
Earthquake were markedly different from the six years
that they spent in the aftermath of Latur earthquake.
In Latur our role could be considered as that of activists
to some degree. It was constructive but also confrontationist.
Since, Latur was a first rehabilitation of its kind
in the country there were things that aroused our passion
resulting in to confrontations of some sort, mainly
with the government. There, although, we worked, among
other things, on the government rehabilitation program,
especially for training the engineers and for retrofitting
of some 150 houses, we had no success in collaborating
with other NGOs.
In Gujarat, we adopted a path of
non-confrontation. As a result there was much more collaboration
with the government. It certainly resulted in to compromises
at times. But we saw a quantum jump in our reach. In
Gujarat the awareness materials prepared by us reached
nearly 1500 villages in just one and half years compared
to 125 villages in Latur in six years. The program on
the line of the Capacity Building Program became possible
mainly because of positive approach with the government.
In Gujarat our collaboration with
a few NGOs could be considered effective and successful.
There was a clear multiplication of the technical and
social strength of NCPDP with the organizational and
monetary strength of Bhansali Trust. The shear numbers
of things that got executed within three years stand
witness to this success.
Latur was
a great learning ground of disaster rehabilitation and
disaster mitigation for them. After six years in Latur
we had clear vision of what a housing rehabilitation
program should be like. But Gujarat experience, especially
that with the rehabilitation of four villages and our
observation of what the people were doing brought us
to rather different conclusions. Gujarat also provided
opportunities of doing things on a much bigger scale.
And, it provided new lessons, especially in working
with the government, and in retrofitting of a large
variety of structures, small and big. Our convictions
about the need for “a felt-need for safety against
future disaster among the people as a basis for sustained
mitigation” became stronger, and so did our conviction
about the need for “a proactive role of the government
in creating a felt need for skill up-gradation among
the masons to ensure an overall improvement in the construction
quality for vulnerability reduction”. Not withstanding
the marked improvements from Latur rehabilitation, the
Gujarat experience failed to make headway on both these
accounts.