Santo Domingo.-From a survey of 1,200 schools carried out by the National Office for Seismic Assessment and Vulnerability of Infrastructures and Buildings (Onesvie), some 300 located on geological faults, are in a state of high risk and require immediate reinforcement.
The Ministry of Education is starting the process.
In the case of hospitals, 84 equivalent to 70% of the total, 190 could not be available or collapse; while 15 percent of some 500 colonial buildings would also suffer a similar fate, at least on their facades, in the event of a magnitude 7 earthquake.
The data was revealed by Leonardo de Jesús Reyes Madera, general director of Onesvie, interviewed by EL DÍA regarding how prepared the Dominican Republic is for the occurrence of a large-magnitude earthquake.
He announced that it will be from the occurrence of an earthquake greater than magnitude 7 that the country will know if the “Regulation R-001 on Seismic Analysis of Structure” has truly been applied.
Reyes Madera does not rule out that an earthquake of this magnitude could occur in the so-called Fosa de los Muertos, as well as in the Cibao region.
Bypassed Code
Here there are 14 active tectonic faults, said the expert, after insisting that as long as the application of the Codes of both 1979 and 2011 has been respected, a misfortune like that of Turkey should not be suffered.
The earthquake-resistant engineer says that, although this Code emerged in 1979, Public Works did not require the seismic force to be applied to buildings under four stories.
From that date onwards, seismic analyzes of the buildings began only from those levels, while this was happening another large mass of vulnerable buildings was erected, apart from the illegal constructions.
The process initiated by the engineer Rafael Corominas Pepín, in Onesvie, with the support of the Dominican Society of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering fell into limbo with the change of management until Reyes Madera took office in 2020.
In 2011, the update of Regulation R-001 of 1979 was published and the seismic forces were required to be applied to all types of work to be built, including from one level upwards.
“What happens now, we have a very strong regulation, which not only increased the design seismic force, but penalizes situations and concepts such as soft floors, short columns, the use of two lines of resistance and the control of maximum displacements. Whose devastating effects have been reflected in the collapse of thousands of buildings in the earthquake in Turkey.
There, more than 50,000 illegal buildings, which they legalize through an amnesty, that is, they are not regulated, are the ones that today are mostly on the ground, commented Reyes Madera, who understands that although the constructions are more expensive, a correct application of the regulation as the only guarantee of safeguarding human lives and buildings.
However, he refers that when someone knows about this subject and observes, for example, a modern building, with only two rows of columns, which clearly reflects that it violates Regulation R-001, one must wonder if this work falls within those that they are being built without the approval of the Mived, thus remaining within the illegal constructions that do not guarantee life or property.
Through Onesvie, which is in charge of the preservation of the national patrimony, understood from the seismic aspect, since the cycle of the publication of the provisional regulation was closed, the cities have become a laboratory type seismic table where the buildings will be tested and will be the stage to find out if the correct application of the regulation has been efficient, as well as the response of those who evaded it.
seismic forces
The Seismic Code establishes the conditions of minimum forces, based on the earthquakes that occur every 50 years; other essential works for every 475 years (basic force), but if it is a work such as hospitals and schools are carried out for the earthquake of 2,475 years, which would cover the different probabilities.
Onesvie addresses private concerns
Facility The Onesvie director said they are focused on reinforcing schools, studying overpasses and overpasses. The same in a pilot plan in the Naco sector to determine which structures are visibly vulnerable for prevention purposes in the event of an emergency, regardless of other supervisions.
At the private level, they offer a first visual evaluation that is done through the FEMA P-154 form presented by the United States Federal Agency, a brochure that, depending on the low, high or medium threat zone, says if the buildings meet requirements.
Requests are made via email @onesvierd and Ministry of Housing.
