“Now, we need a fresh geological map, especially as we have lined up mega infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars over the next so many years,” said Jassem Al Malki, vice-chairman of the Central Municipal Council (CMC).
Al Malki, who is an engineer by training, said he first raised the issue of Qatar’s building code incorporating measures for building designs to guarantee safety against quakes in early 2008 in the CMC after a four- to five-magnitude quake hit neighbouring Al Fujairah.
The CMC, after lengthy deliberations, approved the proposal and forwarded it to the Standards and Specifications Organisation, which was under the civic ministry then. “We even invited the head of the organisation, Dr Mohamed Saif Al Kuwari, to the CMC and posed several questions to him.”
Al Malki said he was shocked to discover that when the new building code was unveiled by Qatar a couple of years ago, the proposal wasn’t incorporated. It had been ignored entirely.
The recent aftershocks that caused a scare here and in the rest of the GCC region have brought the issue to the fore again.
“While it is true that infrastructure project costs would escalate due to the new building regulations — provided they are brought into force — we do need them for long-term safety of buildings and life and property.”
No one has any idea about the exact magnitude of the aftershocks of the Iranian quakes that were felt here, but it is estimated that they might have varied between three and 3.5 on the Richter scale, said the CMC vice-chairman. “And not all GCC countries witnessed aftershocks of similar intensity. The intensity differed.”
While talking about the recent aftershocks, people have generally been focusing on the skyscrapers in West Bay.
“The fact of the matter is that more vulnerable buildings here are the low-rise ones that were built years ago when building designs didn’t take into consideration possibilities of tremors rocking this place,” said Ahmed Jolo, chairman of Qatari Engineers’ Association.
According to Al Malki, the issue of the new building code will be raised in the CMC again. “Definitely, it merits our attention in view of what we have witnessed recently.”
To say that Qatar does not lie in a seismic zone and, therefore, is safe doesn’t sound convincing any more, he said.
“It is not a pragmatic thinking, particularly when we are building infrastructure on such a large scale and spending billions and billions of dollars.”
Then, there is this twin threat from the nuclear power plant in Iran located in a highly sensitive seismic zone. The issue of the quakes, coupled with the nuclear threat, has massive ramifications for the GCC states, according to Al Malki.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt have construction codes that incorporate regulations for building designs to guarantee safety against tremors, so why can’t Qatar have it, wondered Al Malki.
He said he found the idea of each GCC country having its own seismic centre weird and unconvincing. “We can have a centralised, regional seismic centre. Why can’t we show unity in at least this area which concerns the safety of every one of us?”
Jolo said the situation was not “very alarming” here, adding that nevertheless a regional building code was the need of the hour.
Concerned by the Iranian quakes and the threat from the Iranian power plant in the seismic zone that was hit by the powerful tremors recently, the GCC countries have joined hands and set up a number of specialist committees that are tasked with working out a regional building code that guarantees new constructions in the region against the twin threats, Jolo said.
The GCC states have actually been working jointly for quite a while to frame standardised construction regulations. “We will be incorporating safety measures against threats from the quakes and nuclear disaster in the new regional building code being developed.” Jolo said he hoped that the code should be ready anytime next year.
