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MEXICO: 20 Years On, Many Lessons from Earthquake Still Unlearned
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY, Sep 19 (IPS) - The earthquake that claimed 10,000 lives in the
Mexican capital 20 years ago Monday not only drastically changed the
appearance of the city, unveiled corrupt building practices, and triggered
the creation of numerous social movements, but also left hard lessons and
prompted changes.
But few believe the city has taken the necessary steps to prepare for the
next big quake.
"We are just the same or in a worse position than before," Mauro
Samorategui, who was a communications official in the president's office in
1985, told IPS. "I believe that with an earthquake like that one, the
government would be paralysed, just like what happened on that occasion."
Greater Mexico City has a population of more than 17 million, but the city
proper has some nine million inhabitants. Of these, 358,000 families live in
overcrowded shantytowns, old buildings in poor condition and
earthquake-prone areas of gullies and ravines, with no sewage or running
water.
These people, the poorest of the poor, are the most vulnerable to natural
catastrophes - and were the hardest hit 20 years ago, just as the poor bore
the brunt of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding over the past few
weeks in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Moreover, much of Mexico City, especially the historic centre, is built on
what was once a lake bed, an area that is prone to flooding and seismic
movements.
Benicia Anaya, who was eight years old when the earthquake hit, said "the
preparation they talk about simply does not exist" - an assertion she makes
despite the fact that as a student, she took part in a number of earthquake
drills.
That view is shared by Guillermina Trinidad, a cleaning woman, who said she
still has vivid memories "of all of the bodies lying around on the streets"
on and after Sep. 19, 1985.
A survey carried out by the newspaper Reforma early this month among more
than 600 residents of the capital found that 62 percent of respondents did
not feel prepared to confront an earthquake of the magnitude of the one that
destroyed hundreds of buildings 20 years ago, which measured 8.1 on the
Richter scale.
Because it is located in a zone of major seismic activity, Mexico City can
expect another large earthquake, although it is impossible to predict when
it will occur, say scientists.
The only thing that can be done, then, is to improve prevention systems,
enforce stricter building codes and curb the emergence of slums, they add.
Sitting atop three tectonic plates, Mexico is one of the most
seismologically active areas in the world, and the capital is located in an
especially vulnerable spot. An average of about 20,000 earth movements a
year occur in this country, although most are imperceptible to local
inhabitants.
But the roughly 400 quakes measuring more than five on the Richter scale in
the past 20 years were equivalent to the energy released by the explosion of
234,000 atomic bombs, according to the Seismological Service.
The continual shifting of the tectonic plates will, at some point in the
distant future, separate Central America from the rest of the continent, say
researchers.
"We have to prepare for the worst, and there is still a lot to be done. We
must acknowledge that," Santiago Darwin, a geologist who specialises in
earthquakes, told IPS.
A seismic alarm went off Monday at 12:00 noon, and millions of people -
mainly students and employees in public offices - filed into the streets in
an orderly manner.
It was just a drill that authorities have been planning for at least two
months, to commemorate the tragedy that occurred 20 years ago.
But that's all it was, "a make-believe game that doesn't prepare you for the
real thing," said Samorategui.
Although more than half of all students or people with formal sector jobs in
the capital say they have taken part in drills and have heard talks on what
to do in the event of a real earthquake, most of them say they feel
unprepared to face a large-scale disaster, according to the Reforma survey.
The government, however, says that things have changed drastically since
1985.
There is a stronger culture of prevention, new buildings were built in
accordance with strict earthquake regulations, and people are much more
aware of their power to organise in response to a disaster, said Mexico City
Mayor Alejandro Encinas of the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD).
In one of the various ceremonies held to mark the tragic date, President
Vicente Fox said that in September 1985, a new society was born in Mexico,
which he believes underpins democracy.
Fox was referring to the spontaneous way that survivors came together to
rescue people and help each other after the earthquake, while the government
of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), headed at the time by Miguel
de la Madrid (1982-1988), was paralysed.
During the terrible days after the disaster, when most of the rescues and
rubble removal were carried out not by the police, soldiers, rescue workers
or other government employees but by anonymous citizens, many civic groups
pushing for democracy, safe housing, and a truly multi-party system were
born.
It was several of these organisations that investigated and later
demonstrated that many of the buildings in the city built prior to 1985
violated safety codes and regulations, and that the local PRI authorities
had been fully aware of that fact.
Some analysts say the 1985 quake shook the very foundations of the PRI,
which governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000.
The earthquake also expelled local residents to the outskirts of the city.
Studies by the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics
indicate that the Sep. 19, 1985 catastrophe pushed more than 700,000 Mexico
City residents to outlying suburbs, where they occupied land and built new
shantytowns or moved into posh urban developments.
From 1960 to 1998, the population of central Mexico City doubled, but it
rose 11-fold on the outskirts of the city, studies by the Autonomous
Metropolitan University show.
The outskirts continue to grow due to occupations of land by poor families
as well as the emergence of luxurious neighbourhoods for the well-heeled.
In 2000, the metropolitan area of Greater Mexico City covered 156,188
hectares and was populated by 17.3 million people. Experts predict that by
2010 the urbanised area will have expanded to 200,888 hectares and the
population will have grown to 20.4 million, which means population density
will drop from 111 to 102 inhabitants per hectare.
( (END/2005)
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