U.S. to Provide Expertise in Protecting Delhi's Buildings from Earthquakes

April 28, 2005

NEW DELHI - In a significant step to expand U.S.- India cooperation in disaster management, the United States today announced it would assist the Delhi government in conducting its program of "seismic retrofitting" to introduce earthquake resistant building technologies in the city.

Speaking at the launch of the Delhi government's "Delhi Earthquake Safety Initiative for Lifeline Buildings" program here today, India Mission Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) George Deikun said his agency will facilitate the inflow of U.S. expertise to improve the safety of Delhi 's residents from natural calamities. This initiative will develop retrofitting plans for five critical buildings in the city with technical support from Indian and U.S. experts in the field.

Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit was the chief guest at the launch of the project, which proposes to retrofit 5 critical structures in Delhi , thereby strengthening the existing buildings and enhancing the skills of the Indian engineers.

The project will be led by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA), the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi and supported by USAID in collaboration with the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs. The program will be implemented on the ground by two NGOs - GeoHazards International (GHI) from the U.S. and the Delhi-based SEEDS.

Elaborating on the U.S. contribution, Mr. Deikun said: "There is a wealth of experience and expertise in disaster management in the U.S. and we will bring the best of that expertise and state of the art technology to this project and other efforts in India . For this Delhi initiative, experts from California will collaborate and share lessons learned with Indian seismic experts and structural engineers. These leaders in earthquake safety in the U.S. have on-the-ground experience to share from their successes and failures."

A refresher course on Seismic Evaluation and Retrofitting Design of Buildings is scheduled May 2-5, 2005 for the engineers of Delhi in charge of the buildings identified in this project. A team of world class Indian and U.S. experts will provide advice to the project through a peer-review process. The Project would also demonstrate the effectiveness of non-structural mitigation measures in the school and hospital buildings selected under the Project. It is expected that this initiative would form the pilot to a larger nation-wide movement to reduce earthquake risk in India .