TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO: Of Elections and Earthquakes

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Wesley Gibbings

PORT OF SPAIN, Apr 23 1997 (IPS) - Tobagonians concerned with the prospect of picking up the political pieces following an important upcoming by-election set for May 5, now have something else on their minds and it has nothing to do with politics.

For the second time in one month they are counting their losses after a fairly strong earthquake which hit the island Tuesday.

Two persons are in hospital and more than 30 houses and public buildings were damaged in the earthquake which measured 5.9 on the Richter Scale.

The very day the earthquake hit, one newspaper carried a special section on earthquake-preparedness quoting the director of the National Emergency management Agency (NEMA) Colonel Mahendra Mathur as saying voluntary building codes are being completely ignored.

The last time a significant earthquake struck the island was on Apr. 2. That tremor caused one house to collapse and substantial damage was sustained by a number of public buildings including the island’s central bus terminus, library and post office.

This time, three houses collapsed. David Forde, one of the injured, lost his entire collection of antiques in the Apr. 2 earthquake. Now he is homeless.

The rest of Tobago had begun returning to a state of normalcy after experiencing a series of aftershocks associated with the first earthquake. Now they are being told to expect a fresh series of aftershocks arising from Tuesday’s tremor.

Residents of this twin-island state are somewhat used to these occurrences. An earthquake registering 6.0 was recorded in the wee hours of the morning in 1988 while another of magnitude 5.7 was felt on the south-east coast of Trinidad in 1994. In both cases, damage was minimal.

Several factors are being put forward for the extent of damage in Tobago by this month’s earthquakes. A seismic report issued in the 1980s pinpoints the area between Scarborough on the south-west tip of the island to Mount Irvine on the north-west coast, as being particularly vulnerable to earth tremors.

Use of beach sand in Tobago for construction, a practice long decried by environmentalists, has been attributed by at least one resident as contributing to the damage to her house. The salt content of the sand causes steel reinforcements to rust and fall away from the concrete.

However, the common denominator in all instances of damage has been poor construction practices. One insurance adjuster after surveying claims from the first earthquake stated, “There is a complete absence of ring beams and other measures of tying walls, floors and roofs together.”

His statement has been echoed by Dr. Myron Chin, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine campus located in Trinidad.

Chin says “some supposedly well engineered buildings” have not been built to withstand catastrophe risks, such as hurricanes and earthquakes.

Referring to Hurricane Gilbert, which ravaged Jamaica in 1988, causing severe damage to hospitals, churches and schools, Chin said, “The construction of such buildings is left to the builders without adequate supervision, as a result the quality of the product is often questionable.”

Civil engineers in Trinidad have recognised the potential for disaster and commercial and industrial buildings located in this heavily industrialised country are normally built to the same standards used in southern California in the United States.

However, residential buildings throughout the country are not normally constructed by civil engineers and builders. Vowing that “God is a Trini (Trinidadian)” — a statement popularised after many near miss hurricanes — Trinidadians tend to disregard even the most inexpensive mitigating measures.

Chin has called for the enforcement of the Caribbean Uniform Building Code (CUBIC), a series of building codes and standards for all Caribbean countries reviewed in 1995. Mathur says the codes are “not mandatory” but even when they become law it is not going to be easy to enforce.”

Ancil Stewart’s house is not far from the building which collapsed on Apr. 2. He thought he was safe. Now, his car is sandwiched between the top floor and the foundation of his house.

Officials at the Trinidad-based seismic Research Unit do not want anyone to be lulled into any sense of complacency. Seismologist, Dr. William Ambeh, who oversaw early work on the simmering Montserrat Volcano says Trinidad and Tobago are in this for the long haul.

“We can’t see any trend. It’s just because where we are, we are susceptible to earthquakes,” he says.

NEMA officials are hoping over the long term the two southern Caribbean islands do not remain susceptible to the level of earthquake damage currently being witnessed in Tobago.