On the 80th anniversary of the La Vega earthquake of August 4, 1946, the last major earthquake recorded in the country, Reyes Madera says that "We continue to build vulnerabilities.".
SANTO DOMINGO. – Engineer Leonardo Reyes Madera, general director of the National Office of Seismic Evaluation and Vulnerability of Infrastructure and Buildings (Onesvie), revealed that, out of every 100 buildings evaluated by the institution, ten require an additional seismic review, even if they were built in accordance with current regulations.
The official made the statements to journalist Federico Méndez, on the program Esferas de Poder, which is broadcast on Sundays from 8:00 to 9:00 in the morning on RNN Channel 27.
Reyes Madera placed the discovery within the context of the 80th anniversary of the 1946 earthquake, the last major earthquake recorded in the country, which occurred on August 4 of that year. “What have we done in these 80 years? Continue building vulnerabilities,” he stated, explaining that during this period without a major earthquake, the construction of structures continues, which, over time, require a new technical assessment.
Onesvie was created by Decree 715-01, dated July 5, 2001, with the mandate to diagnose the seismic resistance capacity of buildings in the country and establish the necessary corrections where required. The institution, which this year commemorates its twenty-fifth anniversary, began its work evaluating only schools and, over the years, added public buildings and hospitals, until in 2020 it extended its scope to the private sector.
What has been done
According to the director general, the fieldwork began in the Naco neighborhood of the National District, where approximately 1,100 public, private, and institutional buildings were identified, of which the office has already evaluated about 850. The survey in the Quisqueya neighborhood has been fully completed, while in Piantini the process has advanced by 30 percent.
This fieldwork, Onesvie specified in an official statement last May, corresponds to the Dominican Network of Structural Evaluators (REED), a program created by the institution in conjunction with the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects, and Surveyors (CODIA) to train and certify professionals in structural vulnerability assessment. According to Onesvie's own figures, the network had 950 certified evaluators as of July of this year, with the institutional goal of exceeding 1,000 before the end of 2026.
This field deployment, Reyes Madera explained, is not intended to assess buildings in isolation, but rather to create a kind of vulnerability map that would allow authorities, in the event of an earthquake, to determine which routes would remain open so that emergency services, including 911, could reach any point in the area. “We are not a search and rescue agency, but we can certainly serve the country in that regard,” he noted.
The results of each evaluation, he indicated, will be delivered to the neighborhood associations and the owners of the towers examined, and will be made public once each phase of the process is completed, information that in practice can become an additional input for buyers, insurers and financial entities when valuing a property.
That same finding, however, comes to individual owners and consortiums at a time when the Dominican legal framework leaves much of the decision to act in the hands of the condominiums themselves.
Regulation R-001 is mandatory for new buildings, but there is no generalized legal obligation requiring existing private condominiums to undergo seismic evaluation until August 2026.
Law 5038 on Condominiums, from 1958 and partially modified by Law 108-05 on Real Estate Registration, regulates how these types of decisions are made within a building: any intervention that affects structural elements, including any potential evaluation or reinforcement, requires the approval of the owners' assembly, and no condominium owner can modify the structure of their private unit on their own. The condominium administrator is responsible for placing the issue on the assembly's agenda, presenting quotes, and following up to see if the owners approve proceeding.
“Nobody is saying your building is going to collapse because the form tells you to check it,” the official clarified, addressing concerns that the 10 percent figure might generate.
Reyes Madera clarified that buildings erected under the 2011 regulations, currently in force, should not present major problems in the event of a seismic event, provided that the regulations have been respected, quality control of materials has been maintained, and strict supervision has been carried out during construction.
The office's mission, he insisted, is to detect vulnerabilities and propose solutions to the relevant agencies, which are in turn responsible for carrying out the necessary interventions in buildings, bridges, dams, aqueducts, hospitals, and schools.
“What we are doing is placing our buildings on a test table, which is the earth, which is the ground where we have founded them, to see what happens when it moves,” described Reyes Madera, who believes that no country in the world is truly prepared for an earthquake and that prevention should be the guiding principle of the Dominican construction sector.
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