SANTO DOMINGO.- Engineer Ashley Morales Cartagena, current director of the United States Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), believes that a resilience and risk management office should be created in the country so that every Dominican citizen can learn about the different risks to which they are exposed.
“"Not just seismic activity, but all the risks we face. We need to work on evacuation routes, conduct drills, and have an office dedicated to centralizing all that work," said the president of Women in Engineering Dominican Republic.
The prominent professional believes that the country should have a national program for seismic risk reduction that promotes and legally mandates the structural reinforcement of structures that do not comply with the seismic code, to ensure that the structures behave as required when an earthquake occurs.
Cartagena recommends that the country immediately begin evaluating existing structures before the implementation of the seismic code, in order to reinforce them, especially hospitals, schools, and buildings located near major fault zones.
“Our structures, all those built before the Seismic Code, will be highly affected because they weren't designed for it. After the code is implemented, we can be more at ease, as the engineer knows what they put into their work. However, we must examine the mass of structures built before the code and begin working on reinforcing them,” he explained while participating in the program Tierra de Campeones, hosted by Luisín Mejía on Color Visión.
Regarding what happened in Turkey in February of this year, where an earthquake caused the death of more than 50,000 people, he believes that many engineers did not follow the designs or the construction laws, but instead went "to the economy of the chele, to the easiest thing.".
He believes that the same could happen in the country, if a major earthquake were to occur, in the most vulnerable areas where construction is done without any engineering criteria.
He urged the public not to be afraid in the event of an earthquake and encouraged them to take action. “Education and knowledge of the risks save lives. Start by looking at all the things in your home that could harm you if an earthquake were to occur. Make your family emergency plan, and share it with your children, parents, and grandchildren so that this becomes part of our community's DNA.”.
Likewise, he specifies, if your building is not safe because it was built before the seismic code, request an evaluation from the National Office of Seismic Evaluation and Vulnerability of Infrastructure and Buildings (ONESVIE), “there are elements and tools, of the few things we have we must use them, don't be afraid and let's all work together so that we have a resilient country.”.
Birth Seismic Code
According to the document "Seismic Hazard Analysis and Seismic Code of the Dominican Republic on the Island of Hispaniola" by engineer Héctor O'Reilly, it was in 1979 that "The provisional recommendations for the seismic analysis of structures, mandatory for use throughout the national territory, were first put into effect in the country. Prior to that, Dominican regulations did not take into account the seismic effect in any way.".
