Blog

Earthquake risk and school seismic upgrades in B.C.

There are 126 schools that are rated by the B.C. Ministry of Education as “high-risk” and vulnerable to damage and structural failure in the case of an earthquake.

A deadline to seismically upgrade schools had been set for 2020, but recently Education Minister Peter Fassbender has moved that deadline back between five and 10 years depending where you are in the province.

CBC mapped all the schools highlighted by the Ministry of Education’s seismic mitigation program against an earthquake risk map.

The data shows, for example, that only three schools in Richmond — which is at extreme earthquake risk — have been completed, while the majority of schools in the district are not in line for seismic upgrades.

Schools constructed since 1992 are not included in the map because they’re built to modern structural codes and do not require structural upgrades.

Source: B.C. Ministry of Education on seismic mitigation program as of January 2015; Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction’s earthquake risk tool.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/multimedia/earthquake-risk-and-school-seismic-upgrades-in-b-c-1.3051462