Chair: Mr. Sultonnazar Kholiqnazarov, Deputy Chief of Staff , Committee of Emergency Situations and Civil Defense (CoES)
Participants: REACT partners (Annex 5 - attached)
1. Introduction
Mr. Sultonnazar Kholiqnazarov (CoES) opened the meeting, welcomed all participants. He mentioned that year of 2010 started with devastating disasters globally and locally, with such disasters occurring as: earthquake in Haiti and earthquake in Vanj district of Tajikistan. Further on he presented the agenda of the meeting.
2. Situation updates in Vanj district:
- Seismological situation and construction:
Mr. Farshed Karimov from Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology of Academy of Science of Tajikistan (IEES) gave a brief presentation on details of the earthquake occurred in Vanj district, GBAO, Tajikistan on January 2, 2010.
Earthquake has occurred early in the morning, 7: 15 a.m, with magnitude of 5, intensity of 6 (MSK-64) and with the depth of 10 km. Areas, where the earthquake intensity reached scale 6 was estimated 250 square km and scale 5 - 900 square km. The map with indication of mentioned areas was presented as well (Annex 1). He informed the participants, that a joint expedition of IEES and GlavGeology to Vanj district was conducted on January 4-10,2010. During the expedition dwelling premises, social and administrative constructions were surveyed in 24 settlements. The survey indicated that most of dwelling houses and social buildings are from cracked stones on clay with weak constructive elements and rarely from bricks and cement blocks. He also, highlighted that one schools, which was build from bricks and concrete, in accordance to building code could resist the earthquake, while the rest of the schools, which were built from cracked stones and clay, without consideration of the building norms, were damaged. Currently IEES has installed one SMA device, for records of aftershocks, which can be severely destructive considering the current conditions of the buildings. One expert from IEES is on assignment in Vanj for maintenance of device. However, the device activates automatically when intensive aftershock occurs. On January 6, 2010 an aftershock with intensity of 3-4 has been recorded.
Mr. Alisho Shomahmadov from CoES noted that considering the extent of damages caused to buildings, allows an assumption that intensity of the earthquake might have been stronger than it was reported.
Mr. Karimov agreed that intensity of the earthquake varied from area to area, however IEES used the average figure to report the intensity.
Ms. Marydean Purves from Mission East, noted that Mr. Karimov during his presentation mentioned that houses from crack stones and clay did not resist compared to those built from Bricks and concrete and requested to elaborate on this.
Mr. Karimov, confirmed that pour quality of construction and materials used for construction, caused more damages. He highlighted, that in most of the cases, population can't afford high quality construction materials, but in some other cases have poor knowledge on proper construction techniques and IEES is putting all efforts for raise the knowledge of the population.
- Damage and needs overview:
Mr. Jamshed Kamolov from CoES presented an overview of situation in Vanj district following the earthquake. He mentioned that earthquake details have been already reported, he will give an update on damages caused. Mr. Kamolov informed that damage was mainly caused 20 villages of 2 Jamoats of Vanj district, GBAO. Significant damage was caused to villages: Gishkhun, Puni Chugoni, Bichkharv, Rog, Bodavd, Panjshanbeobod, Dashtirog, Roharv, Punidu of Vanj Jamaot and village Jamak of Jamoat Yazgulom. Government of Tajikistan mobilized a special working group for conduction of damage assessment, consisting from experts of Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology, Glavgeology and Agency on Architecture and Construction.