Greek wisdom to aid Iran reconstruction

By Maria Kielmas

Date: 05/02/04

IF YOU live in an earthquake-prone area, nothing is more dangerous than building houses from dried-mud brick. But this need not be so, European experts say.

"There's an old Greek proverb about this type of construction," says Panayotis Carydis, professor of earthquake engineering at the National Technical University of Athens. "You save me from insects and water, and I will save you from fire and earthquakes."

Mud-brick (known as adobe) buildings were pulverised in the Iranian city of Bam, during last December's devastating earthquake that killed up to 50,000 people, injured the same number and left almost 100,000 homeless.

But Carydis suggests that mud buildings should not be declared off-limits as a result of the tragedy. If the mud is reinforced with straw or goat hair, the surface waterproofed, and drainage and ventilation permitted in the body of adobe walls, such buildings can be made safe.

This is a lesson Greek engineers learned after the 1981 earthquake that was centred in the Gulf of Corinth - and one which Carydis hopes to share with his Iranian engineering colleagues as they prepare to reconstruct Bam.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that adobe buildings are a death trap, "they lack any type of radiation, which is found in stone buildings, do not suffer from any vibration and keep out noise," Carydis points out.

Specialists from the CRATerre Laboratory at the Grenoble School of Architecture are working with the Iranian authorities on the reconstruction of homes and the Citadel in Bam. Over the past 25 years, this group has worked to develop and improve construction techniques for low-cost housing in disaster-prone regions worldwide.

"We will develop a prototype building in Bam and then the local people will copy it," says Patrice Doat, professor of science and techniques at CRATerre. Modern earthquake-resistant design for high-rise and concrete buildings is of little use in Bam, whose inhabitants are poor and live in a desert region, he adds.

The European Commission sponsors earthquake engineering research, but this has been both of a short-term nature and concentrated within Europe. There is scope for broad European cooperation but this has to be a long-term project, thinks Denis Hatzfeld, a seismologist at Grenoble Observatory.

Hatzfeld visited Iran last month, linking up with a French culture ministry delegation. "They [the Iranian authorities] want to build up an exchange of knowledge and capabilities. They are looking to the long-term to learn about techniques and to start up common projects," he says.

Scientists at the International Institute for Earthquake Engineering in Tehran have been deluged by proposals from overseas about Bam's reconstruction. But they are not interested in short-term private sector suggestions or "disaster tourists" camouflaged as scientists.

Hatzfeld thinks there is room for a joint EU effort among seismologists and earthquake engineers, cooperating with Iranian counterparts.

Iran suffers the greatest human loss from earthquakes in proportion to its size and population. Between 5,000-40,000 people are killed by earthquakes in the country every decade.

The only way this death toll can be minimized is to develop safer methods of construction with the materials most of the population has available: mud bricks and stone. The introduction of fast-growing wood could also help, he thinks, to act as a basic frame in buildings and to provide more support to the brick.

The fruits of such cooperation could come full circle - some of Carydis' former students, who live in Munich, are hoping to build their homes in mud brick. "High income people in the richest part of Europe now want to live in adobe buildings," he says.

• Maria Kielmas is a freelance journalist specializing in the energy sector.