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Monday, April 30, 2001
Ha'aretz: Not a single step has been taken to prepare Israel for earthquakes

Ha'aretz: Not a single step has been taken to prepare Israel for earthquakes

By Zafrir Rinat Ha'aretz Correspondent Ha'aretz 30 April 2001

Though the government has made numerous decisions over the years aimed at
better preparing the country to withstand an earthquake, not one of these
decisions has ever been implemented, the latest State Comptroller's Report
found.

These include decisions to strengthen buildings holding large numbers of
people, such as schools and hospitals, and buildings whose collapse would be
especially catastrophic, such those where toxic materials are made or
stored. This task was entrusted to the Housing Ministry - which has so far
not reinforced a single building.

The Interior and Labor Ministries have also not carried out their appointed
task, which was to set up an office responsible for ensuring that
construction plans meet the requirements for withstanding an earthquake.

Yet another decision left unimplemented was the idea of providing incentives
to apartment residents who carry out renovation plans that make their
buildings stronger. Then interior minister Natan Sharansky never even set up
the proposed interministerial committee to draft such a plan.

One of the more important ideas that has been neglected was that all master
plans should take seismic considerations into account, so that nothing would
be built in particularly dangerous areas. In practice, only one of the 12
relevant plans does take such data into account. The most important of these
plans - Master Plan 35, which deals with all development in Israel through
2020 - largely ignores seismic data.

Still another unimplemented decision was the cabinet's order to the Finance
Ministry in 1990 to prepare a study on the economic impact of an earthquake
and how the government should prepare to cope with the effects of such
damage. The ministry was supposed to submit its conclusions within a year;
so far, it has not even begun work on the project.

The comptroller also surveyed the area around Haifa Bay, where there are
many dangerous chemical plants, and found a number of serious flaws. Some of
the factories were not built to withstand earthquakes.

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