World

Many more explanations however related to morecontrollable concerns such as building design andattributed the damage to lax building conventions indeveloping countries. Channel 5’s ‘5 Facts’, for example,said that building regulations, less strict than those indeveloped countries, had been responsible for the highdeath toll:Graphic: 200 a year this size or biggerReporter: Most of them are not near built-up areas. Oneearthquake in Peru left 70,000 people dead and 600,000homeless.Graphic: 70,000 killed in Peru in 1970Reporter: The death toll is higher in developing countriesbecause regulations aren’t so strict, this latest earthquakewouldn’t have claimed as many victims if it hadhappened in California for example.Graphic: Building regulations important (29.1.99Channel 5 1900-1930)Simon Gillan, a UK Rescue Worker interviewed onboth BBC1 and BBC2 on 28 January, related thedevastation to the ‘mixed building materials’ used indeveloping countries:Simon Gillan, UK Rescue Worker: I was reallysurprised, it was absolutely horrendous. I mean they havegot all sorts of mixed building materials here, somebuildings are standing, other buildings are like what’sstanding behind me, sort of shanty type buildings, thatjust collapsed totally. (BBC1 1800-1830; 28.1.99 BBC22230-2320)By and large, these appear as short one-off statementsin the flow of extended accounts of devastation which arenot taken up by the reporter’s dialogue that encase them.Only BBC2 featured an in-depth report on the scale ofthe damage and its future prevention. Juxtaposed againstappeals by the Colombian government for internationalaid, BBC2 looked at recent earthquakes in Afghanistan,Turkey and China and asked ‘how close is science togiving a way of saving human life?’ The newscaster states:Newscaster: Earthquakes are acts of God, they cannotbe prevented. But if there was some way of gettingreasonable warning, then at least buildings could beevacuated and lives saved...In Japan, the government hasbeen spending around £100 million a year on researchinto earthquake prediction. At this center they keep a 24-hour watch for potential pressure points. But, despitedecades of effort, neither they nor anyone else canmanage more than broad, brash ideas on when, where orif the earth might quake again.... The uncomfortabletruth is that disasters like the one which hit Cobai in 1995,still happen, 4,500 people killed, 100,000 homesdestroyed and a repair bill of $100 billion.The newscaster concludes, ‘prediction would beinevitable, but the chances of it happening are slim’:Newscaster: There are just too many variables, we needto know the location of a potential hit, in terms of itslongitude, latitude and depth, the month, day and timeand the expected magnitude of the quake.With this, the report turns from prediction to thedevastating effects of earthquakes and how this can bemodified. This ultimately concerns building materials.The report interviews a geo-seismic engineer:Zygmunt Lubkowski, Geo-seismic engineer, OveArup & Partners: If we design to modern codes ofpractice and we ensure that buildings, bridges etc areconstructed properly, then we can prevent the sort of lossof life which has been observed in Colombia.Newscaster: Using computer simulations, the engineerscan design and build bridges and buildings to withstandeven very strong earthquakes.The report goes on to look at how a ‘lack ofeducation, money and engineering expertise...allowssuch devastation:Richard Hughes, Building Conventor: Education isobviously a high priority because in most areas acommunity will experience an earthquake once in ageneration, or every few generations and therefore it’simportant to keep the message alive that people are livingin a seismic area and should be aware of it. So, they shouldknow what to do when an earthquake occurs and theyshould know what to do to maintain their houses.The newscaster follows this up with descriptions ofthe ‘frightening’ effects of earthquakes and how ‘victims’need an ‘even chance of surviving them.’ But with this thereport ends; there is no discussion of the ‘repair bill of$100 billion’ for Cobai in 1995 and how Colombia, adeveloping country could afford this, let alone theexpensive building modifications specified, which wouldbe costly.Channel 4 does report that the looting has created a‘security crisis’ that even Colombia, ‘one of the mostviolent countries on earth has never seen before’, that itis ‘a country that’s been racked for so long by civil war’,and that ‘the state of Colombia is in no shape, itsinfrastructure, its political hierarchy...to deal with adisaster like this.’ However nowhere in the news coverageare there attempts to contextualise accounts of disasterwithin the politics of the country. There is no discussion58 DFID – July 2000