As the earthquake happened at night, most of the citizens of Iran were indoors and asleep. The death toll for the earthquake amounted to 26, 271 people and there was an additional 30, 000 people injured in the deadly earthquake. In particular, the city had consisted of many buildings made of mud bricks, which did not meet the expected earthquake regulations set in Iran in 1989. There were 44 countries reported to have sent personnel to assist in the relief operations and 60 countries offering assistance. The earthquake had also stunted the growth of the city as half of the city’s residents were killed and most of the survivors were injured.
Immediately after the earthquake, The Iran government began planning a new city to eliminate the problems that they had in the old city. But there were significant complains from the residents when the plan took place. The costs of the earthquake had mounted from $70,000 to $100, 000 U.S. dollars.
I think the Iran government should have checked the bricks used to make the houses in the city as if they had done something to it, like putting a fine to those residents who do not change the mud bricks to meet the government’s earthquake regulations, the damaged caused by the earthquake would have been minimised. Perhaps it’s the lack of initiative of the government or that the government had not thought of it before hand that had caused the severe damaged caused by the earthquake. If the government had thought of it and put out in plan, I believe the death toll due to the earthquake in the city would have been minimised.
Bibliography
Bam, Iran - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC NEWS Middle East Bam: Jewel of Iranian heritage
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=23658
Pictures of the aftermath of the earthquake:
Picture1: The search party racing against time to find living people.
Picture 2 and 3: People in Iran, homeless.
Picture 4: A man in the search party carrying the dead bodies found.
