Yesterday marked one year since the devastating earthquake shook our neighbour Haiti 120 miles away. Today marks 18 years since the 1993 earthquake in Jamaica. Tomorrow marks 104 years since the devastating earthquake in Jamaica in 1907. This week is being observed as “Earthquake Awareness Week”.

On February 5, 2011, the Holy Trinity (Roman Catholic) Cathedral, now a national monument, will be 100 years old. It was built after the old Holy Trinity Cathedral on Duke Street crumbled in the January 1907 earthquake. From all indications it is a very strong building. But earthquakes can occur in any month of the year. For example, there was a severe earthquake in Jamaica on March 1, 1957.

In the aftermath of the 1957 earthquake, then mayor of Kingston Balfour Barnswell said he hoped that residents in Kingston and St Andrew now understood why there was a strict building code. No one knows the intensity of that earthquake because it damaged the lone Richter scale in Jamaica at the time (which belonged to the Jesuits and was located at St George’s College).

The 1957 earthquake could well have been as intense as that of 1907, but there was far less damage. After the 1907 earthquake, a building code was put in place in Kingston which required that plans for buildings had to be approved by the Town Planning Department of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation. Today buildings are usually approved in Kingston and St Andrew, only if the plan indicates the use of steel or stone.

When we saw the photographs of the earthquake damage in Haiti last year, it was clear to many that very little steel was used in the buildings. At the time of the earthquake in Haiti last year, I wrote that were an earthquake of similar intensity to occur in Kingston, there would not be so much damage because most of Jamaica’s buildings have been constructed with stones or steel.

Two weeks ago Yahoo had an article about the rebuilding in Haiti since the earthquake. There was a photograph of a house being constructed but once again without steel. If that is what is happening in the entire rebuilding process, then the houses will crumble again in another earthquake of similar intensity. It was the German philosopher Albert Einstein (1879-1955) who said that a definition of insanity is to do the same thing many times and always expect different results.

Yes, the Haitians need houses quickly. And perhaps the steel companies throughout the world were not as generous in donating steel as those who donated cement and concrete blocks. But it would be very tragic if another massive earthquake rocked Haiti and houses fell and crushed thousands to death just because the houses were not rebuilt with steel. Mercy and compassion should be accompanied by intelligence.

At the time of the January 13, 1993 earthquake, Jamaica College’s oldest building, Simms, had been constructed in 1883, and the newest, built in 1977, was financed by the World Bank and both are still standing. Today the newest building at JC is the Karl Hendrickson Auditorium, which was opened in November 2010.

On Monday, January 13, 1993 all of the older buildings at JC stood up to the earthquake. But the 1977 building, which was 16 years old in 1993 and no doubt built by directions of university graduates, was seriously damaged.

Eight years ago, a door was installed between two rooms in one of JC’s older buildings which is now more than 120 years old. It took four strong men with sledgehammers at least five days to bore a hole through the wall. I thought it a waste that just up the road from JC at the University of Technology there were building construction students who were not obliged to observe the stone and cement mix from an earlier era on the inside of that wall at JC.

I mentioned my thoughts to the then principal. I even thought of suggesting it to the UTech construction faculty, but I doubted being taken seriously. So I wrote the idea in my weekly column in the Observer, hoping that the lecturers would act quickly before the wall was sealed by masonry and the door installed. As expected the suggestion was ignored – no doubt because it was not in the construction syllabus.

Are the limits of the construction syllabus more important than good examples of buildings that withstand earthquakes? Why have a university if there is no ongoing research? At the time of the January 13, 1993 earthquake I was a columnist for the now defunct Jamaica Herald. I wrote about the then newest building at JC suffering most damage. That alone should have caused sufficient research to re-plan a section of the construction syllabus at universities.

ekrubm765@yahoo.com