Amman - A master seismic plan to identify possible earthquake risk in different zones of Aqaba will be finalised two years after the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) begins an assessment in January 2009.
Stakeholders said work on the master plan would be accompanied by a revision of related legislation and an awareness campaign, to "build national capacities for earthquake risk reduction" in the Kingdom's only port city, which lies some 360 kilometres south of Amman.
The $560,000 assessment is co-funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which is part of Switzerland's federal department of foreign affairs, the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) and UNDP.
"Our aim is to classify Aqaba into zones according to the possible earthquake risk," UNDP environment analyst, Amal Dababseh, told The Jordan Times, adding that vital structures such as bridges, hospitals and schools, would be placed in zones with lower earthquake risk.
The last major earthquake that hit Aqaba in November 1995, which measured 6.2 on the Richter scale, damaged buildings and infrastructure, but caused no fatalities.
Dababseh noted that local experts will conduct the assessment, while foreign specialists might be called in, if needed.
The study seeks to "save lives, reduce casualties and minimise financial losses in the event of an earthquake", according to a UNDP statement.
Considering Aqaba is a special economic zone that welcomes tourism and investment, the UNDP expects a "vast urban and population growth" within the next few years in the city, where some 98,750 people now reside, according to official statistics.
"Before the city develops further, we should know which parts are suitable for building, and which need certain measures in order to build," SDC Country Director Santi Vege told The Jordan Times in an interview at the agency's Amman office earlier this week.
She said the SDC focuses on disaster prevention and poverty reduction, noting that the agency will contribute $160,000 towards the cost of the Aqaba study. The SDC is currently taking part in a similar project in the capital cooperation with the Greater Amman Municipality.
"When you build a house, there are simple measures to follow in order to ensure good construction," Vege explained, citing the type of sand, cement and work mechanism as factors to be considered while building a home.
SDC programme manager Nayef Khouri, said the area of concern was the construction of private residences, where no civil engineers or contractors are usually hired, and thus standard building codes risk being ignored.
"We are not concerned with towers, but more about residential buildings," he added, noting that the SDC apply its experience in the Amman project on the Aqaba study.
ASEZA operation and coordination director, Issam Jaradat, said the authority had contracted UNDP in order to ensure the city's structures are safe in case of an earthquake.
"Although there is no information on upcoming earthquakes, you should be ready for any danger because the region is seismically active," he told The Jordan Times over the phone.
According to Royal Scientific Society (RSS) Vice President Khalid Kahhaleh, there are still "no scientific ways to forecast earthquakes". He noted that attempts by several scientists worldwide to predict the occurrence of earthquakes were still "unproven".
Taking a probabilistic approach, an earthquake usually repeats itself as it originates from the same fault system, which in the case of Jordan is the Dead Sea transform plate boundary fault system, he added.
"Our fault system is not destructive or dangerous as that present in other places of the world like Iran, Turkey or California," he said, explaining that vulnerability for buildings is measured by the earthquake's characteristics, such as its period and deepness.
University of Jordan Professor of Seismology and Geophysics Najib Abou Karaki agreed with Kahhaleh, describing the Kingdom's seismicity as "moderate".
"There is a gap between scientific facts and people's perception, interpretation or understanding of these facts," he told The Jordan Times in an e-mail interview.
Abou Karaki recalled a quote by an American geologist, Bailey Willis, saying that "once an earthquake region, always an earthquake region".
Regional tremors
• A bulk of the population in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon lives within 50 kilometres east and west of the seismically active Dead Sea Transform Fault.
• A 1927 earthquake centred in the Dead Sea killed 242 people in the Kingdom and elderly residents in the south of Jordan still refer to 1927 as the "quake year" .
• The same earthquake killed 300 in Jerusalem and Jericho, according to web sources.
• While there were no fatalities in Jordan, an earthquake in 1995 killed 10 and injured 69 in Egypt. The 6.2 magnitude tremor had its epicentre in the Gulf of Aqaba.
• Buildings were evacuated in 2004 after an earthquake measuring 4.5 to 5 on the Richter scale, with its epicentre in the Dead Sea, hit countries of the region.
• A 5.3 magnitude earthquake in February 2008, caused no casualties in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel.
By Thameen Kheetan
© Jordan Times 2008
