Engineers inspect buildings in Qamishli city damaged in quake
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Sunday, the Stabilization Support Center, with a group of specialized engineers, began inspecting and surveying buildings and houses in the city of Qamishli, northeastern Syria, to detect the size of damage they incurred after the earthquake that hit the country on February 6.
Malla Ramadan, an engineer from the teams, told North Press, “Our team worked in all crises and in different sectors. Now we will inspect buildings in the city of Qamishli.”
“Days ago, an earthquake took place with a magnitude of 5.4 in our region. As a result of this quake, many buildings were damaged. Although the buildings were not destroyed, they now are at risk of collapse should another quake happen,” she said.
She stated that they have formed a group that includes a number of civil engineers who work at the center, and that they will coordinate with the Engineers’ Association and consultant engineers to take the appropriate decisions regarding the houses after inspecting them.
Ramadan explained that they will inspect the houses and then make reports on their state. “Then we will submit the reports to consultant engineers to know the degree of risk. After that, the reports will be handed to international NGOs and concerned authorities to see if they can help us.”
She also said that they inspected three houses. “Some of them had simple cracks, but others had dangerous cracks, such as cracks in columns which is dangerous given that they support the entire weight of a building.”
“After that we tell people that your building suffers from such and such. Then we submit these reports to concerned authorities to see if they can help those affected in terms of renovating their houses,” she concluded.