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alexk
Guest
In the aftermath of yesterday’s 6.8 magnitude earthquake, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley says Government’s major priority today will be to carry out inspections of damaged structures “to determine if their integrity is intact”.
Rowley was speaking during a live telephone interview during CNC3’s extended newscast last evening.
“As soon as it occurred the national security agencies have been monitoring. We have gotten a lot of reports of damages, which appears to be superficial but by tomorrow (today) we will know if any significant structural damage or any building integrity has been compromised,” Rowley said.
He, however, said that the construction work across the country, despite that fact that we do not have our own building code and are guided by the California code, worked “fairly well” during yesterday’s occurrence. “By and large, to go through an earthquake like this and not suffer significant structural damage speaks fairly well for our construction,” he said.
He also noted that given that T&T is in an earthquake zone, we could never really be real prepared for such a shake. He emphasised the importance of the “need to have laws and enforce them”.
“Our structures will one day be subjected to this kind of shake and one day we need to have laws and enforce them. Unfortunately, in this country we are not very good at enforcing laws.”