Radio România Internațional

Tag: seismic

  • Legislation for protection against earthquakes

    Legislation for protection against earthquakes


    During the government meeting on Wednesday, Romanias Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă said that Romania is a country with a high seismic risk, adding that the procedures under which certain construction companies can get certified in various fields of activity must be soon implemented. Furthermore, the Prime Minister says that certain regulations must be adopted forcing construction companies to assume responsibility regarding the earthquake-resistant structure of a building.


    The Prime Minister gave assurances that the government would carry on its efforts in the field of assessing the seismic risk and the measures to be implemented by the Executive and the local authorities for all the programmes and projects aimed at reinforcing the infrastructure


    In the meantime the Romanian Ministry of Development is already running the National Programme for the Consolidation of the Buildings with High Seismic Risk, which has this year been earmarked 40 million Euros worth of budgetary credits and 100 million Euros in commitment appropriation with a 100% funding.


    That means that neither the owners of the aforementioned buildings, nor the local authorities will have to reimburse the money used for their consolidation. According to official data, applications for the structural reinforcement of 400 such buildings have been registered since the beginning of the year. According to Development Minister Cseke Atilla, the first 50 projects have already been selected for funding within the National Programme for the Consolidation of the Buildings with High Seismic Risk.


    Education institutions, social-cultural buildings, blocks of flats, administrative buildings and healthcare units all over Romania have been included on the list of those eligible for funding. The sum for their structural reinforcement accounts for 148 million Euros. Furthermore, on Wednesday the government decided to submit for Parliament approval a bill aimed at banning the rent of apartments in blocks of flats included in vulnerable buildings. The ban will be lifted only after the reinforcement construction has ended.


    According to the Development Minister, after the aforementioned law has come into effect the rent contracts are to be terminated within 30 days at the most.


    Also on Wednesday, the Executive in Bucharest endorsed an emergency ordinance on a programme entitled Safe and Healthy Schools, which proposes a simplified procedure for the introduction of vulnerable schools into the aforementioned investment programme. The list is to be drawn up by the Ministry of Education and will be submitted to the Ministry of Regional Development. According to official figures, besides the buildings to be reinforced through the National Consolidation Programme, the Ministry is funding the reinforcement of another 251 buildings through the National Plan of Recovery and Resilience (PNRR) and of another 57 buildings through the National Investment Company.


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  • Coordination for anti-seismic protection

    Coordination for anti-seismic protection

    The
    devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria last week and those quite unusual that
    rocked south-western Romania seem to have also shaken the authorities in
    Bucharest. Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca says that the standards regarding the
    construction of buildings and the quality of materials must be revised and re-checked
    so that buildings are constructed according to the blueprints.




    During
    the government session on Wednesday, the Prime Minister announced the setting
    up of a ministerial group in charge of the prevention, training and response of
    the institutions in emergency situations.




    He
    explains that special emphasis will be attached to the country’s education infrastructure
    and its response in earthquake situations. Prime Minister Ciuca also wants to
    check the Turkish companies which ran construction contracts in Romania.


    According to experts, Turkey’s
    recent history in this respect coincides with that of Romania’s, with the
    difference that the latter has been spared the tests of high-magnitude
    earthquakes.




    Around the 2018 election, the
    Islamic-Conservative regime in Ankara granted an amnesty to all the
    constructions made without a permit. As a result, nine million people were
    discovered as owning houses, which didn’t respect any construction standards. And
    no one knows how many of these non-compliant buildings were razed to the ground
    by the earthquake on February 6th.




    The recent earthquakes in southern
    Romania have caused panic and material damage but posed no threat to the life
    of the citizens.




    According to Development Minister
    Cseke Attila, contracts for the reinforcement of 240 buildings have been signed
    and they are benefitting from funds from the National Plan of Recovery and
    Resilience (PNRR). There are several other programmes through which the state is
    funding the reinforcement of high-risk buildings and 555 million Euros will be
    earmarked through the PNRR. 290 requests in this respect have so far been submitted
    through the platform of the aforementioned ministry.




    We recall that on March 4th
    1977, an earthquake of 7.2 degrees on the Richter scale hit Romania killing 1,570
    people mostly in the capital Bucharest. It also caused four billion dollars in
    material damage. 230 thousand houses were severely damaged and destroyed and
    hundreds of economic units ceased their operations. The earthquake caused an economic and
    social crisis, which, according to historians, the communist dictatorship was
    unable to overcome until its demise 12 years later. Experts believe that in the
    event of a similar earthquake, hundreds of buildings could collapse in
    Bucharest at present. And according to statistics, Romania sees annually around
    100 earthquakes with magnitudes over 3 degrees on the Richter scale.




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