Abu Dhabi: Old buildings in Abu Dhabi would be able to withstand an earthquake, so they pose no safety or security threat, a municipality spokesman said.
Yousuf Abdul Rahman Al Marzouqi, Head of Spatial Data Division at the Town Planning Sector of the Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, told Gulf News: "Our studies found that almost all existing buildings in the emirate can even withstand an earthquake with a magnitude of 7 [on the Richter Scale]".
The strength of the buildings in the capital could be attributed to the fact that a large amount of reinforced concrete and steel had gone into their construction — more than required for most areas, he said.
He said the Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA) was assessing the safety of old buildings across the emirate under the standards of the new international building code (I-code). The building code is applied to new buildings and whenever existing buildings are renovated.
Various safety and security checks mandated under the I-code are not applicable to old buildings but there was no cause for concern even if they were because of the sound construction practices used in the past, Al Marzouqi said.
Statistics for buildings in Abu Dhabi were not readily available with the official.
He said the municipality's project to integrate earthquake risk management and control systems would help save the construction sector a significant amount of money. The project won the 14th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering (ECEE) Award 2010 recently.
"For example, as I mentioned, the old buildings have been constructed with huge amount of reinforced concrete and steel which are required in vulnerable areas only ... where soil is not solid or seismic activities have been reported," he said.
In other areas, there was no need to spend that much money on concrete reinforcement and steel, Al Marzouqi said.
The project is designed to develop a seismic mapping system for the Abu Dhabi emirate, to identify the areas where buildings needed more safety and security, Al Marzouqi said.
