FIU, USAID team up to prevent loss of life due to disasters

MIAMI – For 40 fierce seconds, the violent earthquake that rocked San Salvador in January 2001 crumbled buildings, ripped streets and destroyed neighborhoods.

Most of the 844 people who died in El Salvador’s disaster, however, came from a newly-built middle class neighborhood in the capital’s suburb of Las Colinas. The 7.6 magnitude earthquake unleashed a huge landslide that rolled down one of the surrounding slopes in less than a minute, burying part of the development.

Fewer lives would have been lost, Florida International University experts say, if builders had taken into account the hill’s vulnerable soil – and kept their development at a safer distance.

A $4.5 million federal project awarded to FIU will allow professors Richard Olson and Juan Pablo Sarmiento to help communities across Latin America and the Caribbean learn from mistakes such as San Salvador’s – and prevent future ones. Olson chairs the Political Science department at FIU, and Sarmiento will join the university later this fall.

The five-year project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA), will take Olson and Sarmiento to at least a dozen disaster-prone cities in countries spanning Latin America, including Chile, Colombia, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

“As we all know from Katrina, the U.S. is not immune to major disasters either, and the lessons learned in Latin America and the Caribbean may have real bounce-back value here as well,” Olson said. “If responding after a disaster strikes is playing defense, then this project offers a real chance to play some offense for a change.”

Olson and Sarmiento will work with scientists, engineers, economists, non-governmental organizations, and civic leaders in each community to assess both physical and social vulnerabilities.  They will then provide technical expertise and other assistance to fix weaknesses before a disaster strikes.

“We’re tired of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people killed in a disaster,” Olson said. “It doesn’t have to be that way. We don’t have to have these human losses anymore.”

Noting Haiti’s school collapse earlier this month, which killed more than 90 people, Tim Callaghan, OFDA’s Senior Regional Advisor for Latin America and the Caribbean, said, “The USAID/OFDA funded FIU project is exactly what we need – action ahead of time in the most at-risk communities. We need to reduce disaster risk ahead of time wherever, and whenever, possible.”

Identifying risk is the key to the new project and, as was the case in San Salvador nearly eight years ago, if a development is proposed in a city repeatedly struck by earthquakes or landslides, Olson and Sarmiento will help leaders evaluate the risks of construction, as well as test structure and slope stability.

“Many communities in Latin America and the Caribbean are often generically knowledgeable of their risks, what they need is help addressing those risks with real-life actions,” Sarmiento said.

A survivor of the deadly 2001 earthquake in San Salvador, Sergio David Gutierrez knows firsthand how foresight could’ve saved many of his neighbors.

“The government allowed over development in a dangerous area,” said Gutierrez, a specialist in risk reduction for USAID/OFDA who lived just 2 miles from the Las Colinas neighborhood. “The authorities do not put limits on development, and at the same time the population has a low perception of risk. We have to strengthen disaster education so that residents and government officials alike can better analyze risks. This program can have a huge impact.”

A secondary mission of the project will be to connect each of the dozen communities to one another, so that successes-and frustrations-may be shared.

“This is exactly the type of project that FIU needs as we raise our national and international profile – innovative, research-based, and with global impact,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Ronald M. Berkman.

-FIU-

Media Contact: Jean-Paul Renaud at 305-348-2716

About USAID/OFDA:
The United States Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) provides humanitarian assistance to save lives, alleviate human suffering, and reduce the social and economic impact of humanitarian emergencies worldwide. The office is responsible for facilitating and coordinating U.S. Government emergency assistance overseas. USAID/OFDA responds to all types of natural disasters, including earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, fires, and disease outbreaks, and also provides assistance when lives or livelihoods are threatened by catastrophes such as civil conflict, acts of terrorism, or industrial accidents. In addition, USAID/OFDA funds mitigation activities to reduce the impact of recurrent natural hazards and provides training and technical assistance to build local capacity for disaster risk management and response. The regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean is located in San Jose, Costa Rica.

About FIU:
Florida International University was founded in 1965 and is Miami’s only public research university. With a student body of more than 38,000, FIU graduates more Hispanics than any other university in the country. Its 17 colleges and schools offer more than 200 bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs in fields such as engineering, international relations and law. FIU has been classified by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a “High Research Activity University.” In 2006 FIU was authorized to establish a medical school, which will welcome its first class in 2009. FIU’s College of Law recently received accreditation in the fastest time allowed by the American Bar Association.