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ENVIRONMENT-UAE: Quake Fears Lead to Call for Action

Meena S Janardhan

DUBAI, Mar 30 2005 (IPS) - The Asian tsunami the day after Christmas, the devastating earthquake in Iran last month, and occasional tremors in the United Arab Emirates have led to calls for monitoring systems and disaster-management plans in the country.

”Frequent earthquakes and the associated damage in Iran have raised and continue to raise concerns over possible seismic activities in the UAE and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries,” said Fares Howari from the geology department of UAE University.

According to experts, the UAE falls in a region of low-to-moderate seismic activity and could also be affected by tremors in neighbouring countries, such as Iran.

On Feb. 22, a powerful earthquake shook central Iran, destroying villages, killing at least 500 people and injuring hundreds. The magnitude-6.4 quake struck the mountainous region early in the morning damaging around 40 villages with a population of some 30,000 people.

”The safety of the UAE would be enhanced by a national earthquake and seismic event monitoring network. We think such a network should be an essential part of any prediction and monitoring regime for combating natural hazards in this country,” said Joseph Hill, dean of the sciences faculty at UAE University.

”Some parts of the northern emirates are located within geological zones that could be affected by regional seismic events. We are surrounded by areas prone to natural hazards – such as Iran, Turkey and Yemen,” he added. ”The extensive urbanisation and heavy investment found in parts of the UAE means the authorities need to do more to monitor potential earthquake hazards.”

Residents from the Masafi and Dibba regions of the UAE have reported occasional tremors as recent as January. Scientists have, in fact, warned that the country should prepare for the threat of earthquakes from the active fault line near Dibba.

”If a strong earthquake hits, many villas and residential buildings in the UAE will be damaged. We must do more to enhance their resistance to seismic events,” said Jamal A Abdullah, from the civil engineering department at the American University of Sharjah.

According to latest studies, the Dibba Fault is active and an earthquake measuring 2.8 on the Richter scale was recorded on Jan. 11. Two other earthquakes were also recorded in Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven emirates, in Jan. 5 at magnitudes of 2.5 and 3.0.

Both the earthquakes were recorded on the Dibba Fault line, which is about 100 kilometers long. A quake measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale had also occurred in Masafi in March 2002.

”My uncle who lives in Dibba says that they have felt at least 150 tremors during the past two years. Some houses have developed cracks as a result. We hope that these are not a prelude to a major earthquake,” Muhammed Al Muhairi, a resident of Dubai, told IPS. Muhairi’s fears could prove true as experts say that the Dibba Fault is capable of producing a major earthquake every 100 years. They add that there has been no major earthquake in the last 100 years and that the tremors could be due to some local tectonic movement on the fault, which is connected to the Zagros Fault that lies across the Arabian Gulf in Iran.

A group of international experts have, in fact, determined that the hazard in the UAE was approximately the same as that in parts of California, Turkey and Iran.

Two faults run through the UAE. One of them runs along the west coast through all the major cities from Abu Dhabi to Ras Al Khaimah. Its activity status is still not known.

The second one, which is called the Dibba Fault, enters the land near the southern borders of Oman, coming from the north and runs southward to the centre of the Arabian Peninsula.

Keith Nakanishi, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the U.S., warned at a recent conference that the Arabian geological plate was slowly moving under the Iranian plate, which could cause an earthquake that generates tsunamis, though not on the scale as the one that hit Asia on Dec. 26.

”There is an urgent need for global cooperation and an exchange of data and information on seismic activity. Human tragedy can be avoided by effective monitoring and early warning systems,” he added.

Experts are also calling for an integrated field survey of the UAE’s geological history that would aid earthquake monitoring efforts. There are nine earthquake monitoring centres in the UAE. However, there is an urgent need to add more state-of-the-art stations with seismographs and accelerometers connected to satellites.

”The terrible images of devastation and destruction that were beamed into our homes from the countries struck by the tsunamis and the lifelessness in the victim’s faces in Iran have really troubled us,” said Dubai resident Muhairi.

”We must have some system in place that will warn us in advance and have emergency measures that can help the victims in the event of such a disaster.”