Thursday, March 25, 2010

A Tale of Two Earthquakes: A Cautionary Tale for Ghana at 53

Flip a coin. Head or tail? If you had to make a choice between Haiti and Chile as a homeland in the face of nature’s fury, which would it be? Haiti folks are black people like us, probably, our long long lost relatives, products of our collective painful history of slavery and colonialism. But to maintain your sanity, don’t choose Haiti because you would be doing so at your own hot peril.

Choose Chile and chances are that you would not chill – much. What might be misleading is that Haiti and Chile are both five letter words, just like Ghana. But don’t be deceived.

Humanity is vulnerable and crises have the unique potential to expose human vulnerability to sorry limits. Crisis situations can lay us bare, butt-naked bare. Human fragility, be it individual, organizational or national, is at the mercy of crises. Fact: crises are not walks in the park. They are not only overwhelming, nerve-racking and heart-breaking but they mightily test ones state of preparedness and resilience while adrenalin rushes in to worsen already bad situations.

An earthquake, being a sudden and unpredictable shaking of mother earth, can potentially bring people to their knees. Just forty-seven days apart, Haiti and Chile experienced earthquakes, both of catastrophic proportions. Chile’s earthquake registered 8.8 magnitude on the Richter scale while Haiti’s was a 7.0. But in terms of the intensity of the shaking, Chile’s earthquake is estimated to have been between a whopping 500-800 times more severe than Haiti’s.

However, the severity of a natural disaster or of any disaster lies in the extent of destruction it unleashes on humanity. Fault-lines in a country’s development tend to heighten natural fault-lines which cause earthquakes. The aftermath of nature’s fury on these two countries presents rich lessons to a country like ours which is expanding with layers of development over-laying multiple layers of underdevelopment in a nonsensical mumbo-jumbo fashion.

While the Chilean economy is considered well-placed to rebuild, Haiti’s economy and its very future is placed solidly at the mercy of the kindness of the world and of course, in God’s cushy bosom. Yet, the earth shook harder under Chile than under Haiti.

One explanation for the vast difference in the impact on the two countries is that Chile enforces a strict building code. In Haiti, anybody can build a house without conforming to rules. Not surprisingly, the building stock in Haiti is weak. Without conforming to standard construction designs in building houses that can withstand nature’s wrath of earthquakes, a country remains at the mercy of nature’s fury.

On the centre-spread of The Ghanaian Times of last Thursday, March 4, is a very important news item with headline, “Does Ghana have a building code?” The paper quoted one J.K. Sarpong, Head of Civil Engineering Division of the Architectural and Engineering Service Limited (AESL), admitting that Ghana does not, on its own, have a building code! Instead, Ghana is supposed to be using the West African Building Code which was prepared years ago so therefore uses the British Building Code.

He added: “This code is very difficult to come by.” So therefore many people are building houses in Ghana who know nothing about a building Code! They just build, in a free-for-all regime. Wow! We are damned!

He also admitted that most buildings in Accra (which is an earthquake prone zone), are not designed to withstand earthquakes since most buildings are designed and built by individuals who are not professionals. How do you abide by a building code that is very difficult to come by? That you don’t even know about? The AESL also says that it’s not responsible for enforcing the code. That it is the sole responsibility of the district assemblies, which do not have the expertise to understand, let alone capable of enforcing the code. You and I must panic at this frightening fact.

A major earthquake in Ghana can send our country back into pre-colonial under-development status. My mother, Madam Beatrice Ansah Israel, tells me about the horrors of the June 22, 1939 earthquake which was at a 6.5 magnitude. She was a young girl growing up at Oblogo near Weija, then a serene fishing village but now notorious as the dumping site-of-choice for Accra’s ‘bola’.

Those days, Accra had a much lower population density with fewer buildings. Houses at Oblogo were mud/thatch houses (with straw roofing). Now, Accra is exploding at the seams with indiscriminate buildings made of concrete. Accra is already an urban catastrophe. Let’s face it, our capital city cannot boast of environmental sustainability. If nothing is done for and about Accra (and soon) to reverse the direction this city has embarked on, one-day one-day, Accra will implode.

Vertical living by way of constructing storey buildings is increasingly becoming the fashion. I asked five people who are building houses if they know about the Building Code and they looked at me as if I’ve just arrived from outer space. “Building what?” they asked. I responded, “Code!” They sneered at me and moved on. The matter rests! But should this matter rest? At our own peril? When lawlessness is allowed to dissolve into layers of piles of concrete, you know that a country is asking for trouble; big trouble!

There is also the sticky matter of leadership. Weeks after Haiti’s earthquake, there was a no-show in national leadership. The government was non-existent, not seen, not heard. When he reappeared, with his palace in rubble, President Rene Preval looked like he was in a trance – so dull, disabled to provide much-needed leadership for his earthquake-ravaged country. Haiti was effectively handed over to an odd collection of international NGOs and countries, without coordination.

Compared to Haiti’s leadership buffoonery is the display of Chilean responsible leadership. Within 24 hours after the catastrophic earthquake, the outgoing Chilean president, Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria, spoke to her people through a press conference to calm down ruffled nerves and to guarantee public order. She had a coordination meeting with a myriad of stakeholders which including seismologists, military, police, NGOs, relevant government ministries, private sector representatives and key representatives of the in-coming administration.

So the tales of the two earthquakes are both catastrophic. Nature unleashed its fury on the two countries and destroyed buildings, roads and other infrastructure. Many died. But Haiti will be down on its knees long after the world has moved on to other pressing stories. On the other hand, although Chile is still struggling under the burden of one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, its chances of recovering are brighter.

Enduring questions for Ghana at 53: Today being Ghana’s 53rd year after independence, a national birthday of some sort to mark maturity, a few enduring questions are in order. For how long would the free-for-all anybody-build-anywhat-anywhere regime last? Who is checking the strength of Ghana’s building stock? Do we want to go the way of Haiti where a natural catastrophe translates into national ruins or the example of Chile where even in the face of a natural disaster (worst than Haiti’s), still has room for hope of recovery? Does Ghana need redemption? When? How? Who would initiate it?

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