The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has decided to revisit the existing building codes under which Islamabad was placed under Zone II-B which enables buildings to withstand earthquake having intensity of up to 6.5 to 6.8 on Richter scale, following October 8, 2005 earthquake. An official said that in the wake of devastating earthquake of 7.7 meningitides on October 26, the civic agency had decided to further upgrade the existing building, which the agency had upgraded after October 8, 2005 earthquake.
He said the federal capital was placed in Zone II before 2005 but after 2005 earthquake, the CDA upgraded the building code in 2007 and put the city in Zone II-B. According to upgraded building codes, the builders were bound to construct new buildings according to Zone II-B and owners of old buildings, constructed before 2005, were bound to upgrade their buildings according to the new building code, he said. The official said that the CDA will conduct a detailed seismic evaluation survey of all high rise and residential buildings in the capital before upgradation of building codes.
Meanwhile, talking to media during inspection of high rise buildings in Blue Area, F-10, F-11 and G-11, chairman CDA Maroof Afzal said that the authority would carry out a survey of all the high rise buildings in the federal capital with the help of reputed structure and design experts/firms to revisit the existing building codes. During his visit, the chairman CDA met management of high rise buildings, residents of residential apartments and listened to their complaints.
He said the CDA regularly carries out emergency preparedness drills and building audits of different structures and suggests measures for overcoming the defects and shortcomings in case of any emergency. He said that CDA's Emergency and Disaster Management constituted different teams after the recent earthquake to inspect the high rise buildings and found out the shortcomings in the emergency equipments installed in the buildings as well as the entry and exit points during the emergency situation. "CDA, after seeking the input of structure engineers/firms would study the data to revise the building codes in light of recommendations made by the structure assessment consultants", he said.