MCD, DDA engineers to assess safety of Delhi buildings

Around 300 engineers from MCD and DDA will fan out across the capital from June to assess if the Delhi buildings can withstand earthquakes, and will submit their reports recommending necessary action.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has finalised a 10-day crash course on Rapid Visual Screening (RVS), with the help of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Delhi Development Authority, to train these engineers.

The RVS method is designed to evaluate risks to buildings without performing any structural calculations. A scoring system requires the evaluator to identify primary structural lateral faults and identify building attributes which can modify the seismic performance.

Officials of NDMA, DDA and MCD met yesterday to chalk out the training schedule and have decided to start the training programme from June. Earlier, it was scheduled to begin this month.

"School buildings, government offices, police stations and other important buildings should be analysed and evaluated first. Proper evacuation plans for these buildings have to be laid out and engineers should be trained accordingly," Prof Harsh K Gupta, a Member of NDMA, told PTI.

The course will be conducted by Dr Chandan Ghosh, who is a specialised earthquake engineer.

After completion of training, engineers would reassess buildings in their locality and submit a report to their respective organisations.

Thereon necessary actions like either demolishing unsafe buildings, or asking building owners to re-submit their building sanction plan in compliance to NDMA's earthquake safety rules, would be taken up by the civic bodies, Gupta said.

RVS training has been quite successful in cities of Thailand and Japan, both highly earthquake-prone nations.

Delhi is among 30 cities in the country falling in the severe intensity seismic zone.

Delhi has experienced the fourth tremor since September last year. Early this morning, an earthquake of 3.5 on Richter Scale shook the capital.

Tremors were felt in the capital on September 18 last year following an earthquake with an intensity of 6.8 on the Richter Scale having its epicentre near Sikkim-Nepal border.

On September eight last year, an earthquake of 4.2 on Richter Scale with Haryana's Sonepat as epicentre, had rocked the capital.