11,000 residents will not be able to return to their homes in Lorca for months.
11,000 residents will not be able to return to their homes in Lorca for months. Public Works technicians have confirmed that 165 or 12% of buildings have suffered structural damage and are uninhabitable following the earthquakes which hit the town last week. 52% of homes have been affected to some extent.
The other priority for the town is for the 6,600 children to return to school. The regional councillor for Education, Constantino Sotaca, said that 12 schools will remain closed for the rest of the academic year, although three will be able to run their infants services. It means that many pupils will be redistributed to other schools and institutes.
The Government is to revise construction regulations following the quake. Experts say that what happened in the town was the sum of much bad luck. Paloma Sobrini, from the COAM Official College of Madrid Architects, explained that the two tremors were very superficial, the first one 10km down and the second one just 1km down, making it far more destructive. She told 20 Minutos the 2002 legislation on earthquake resistant construction in Spain is ‘phenomenal, and so good that it is being adopted in many Latin American countries’.
Despite those positive comments, a three story block, built in 2001, came down, while older blocks around it remained standing, and questions are being asked as to whether the architects college and Town Halls are doing their job in supervising that regulations are being met.
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