Earthquake disaster waiting to happen in downtown Kingston

MINUTES AFTER the 5.6-magnitude earthquake that shook Jamaica on Monday, people beset by panic and asthmatic attacks fled to Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) located in downtown Kingston. According to media reports, the situation was overwhelming for medical staff and the afflicted, some of whom had to be treated in open air.

Now, imagine if the tremor were stronger and had lasted longer to the point where the structurally unsafe buildings and the shell of some had collapsed, especially if it were a very busy shopping day? From the look of things on Monday, KPH could not handle the great number of injured people.

Yet, there might be enough make-shift morgues for the dead, as the area is full of final-care facilities, many of which are not registered.

For, the city parish of Kingston is replete with very old, dilapidated, burnt-out, crumbling buildings in all four segments – east, west, north and south. Some of them are two-storey shells from which the sky can be seen. Some, condemned, and abandoned by their owners, are the permanent homes of people who have nowhere else to live. There are cases where up to three generations are sharing these precarious spaces, and life is just a dream, until a powerful earthquake caught everybody off guard.

From the crumbling bricks to the cracked and shaky concrete slabs, to decomposing wrought iron structures hanging dangerously from rusted supports, to the aged art décor edifices, waiting for the call to fall, it does not augur well for Kingston, this storied place where many a dream has been deferred. Imagine coming all the way from Westmoreland only to die from the blows of falling concrete in downtown Kingston.

It is not a pretty thought, but some of the spaces that have been getting a facelift, are pretty, thanks to the indefatigable team at Kingston Creative, who for the past several years have been leading the mission to make Town beautiful again. They must be commended strong for their vision, civic responsible and the beautiful murals that they have been establishing all over the place. But behind the beauty, danger lurks. Some of the walls on which the painters have displayed their skills are clearly not candidates to withstand a powerful earth movement.

And what about the buildings on the KPH and Victoria Jubilee Hospital premises? How safe are they? What if they too should be severely affected, because some are not very sound structures? It would be utter chaos and much loss of lives, probably like that which took place on June 2, 1692 at Port Royal, when at a few minutes to noon, the islet shook three times; the last time was the most vigorous.

In less than 30 seconds, one of the “wickedest cities on Earth” was destroyed. Brick-and-stone buildings collapsed on to their occupants, the earth opened and swallowed people alive, while spewing out some who were long buried in the waterlogged soil. Two-thirds of the land and some dwellings crumbled to the bottom of the sea. There were several aftershocks, but it was the tsunami that followed that completed the annihilation. Survivors were tossed into the sea and drowned. About 2,000 people were killed. Kingston, too, which grew out of the destruction of Port Royal, is situated beside the sea.

While the bulk of the destruction was in Port Royal, the impact was felt all over the island, where there were hundreds of deaths, over 2,000 damaged buildings, many massive landslides, one of which blocked the Rio Cobre, and another that buried an estate in St Thomas, killing 19 people. St Ann’s Bay was crushed by a tsunami, which occurred after the quake.

Another notable shake-up of the island took place on August 29, 1722 and another on October 22, 1726. On October 20, 1744, a major hurricane and earthquake rattled Port Royal and Kingston. People aboard vessels in port felt the vigour of the September 1771 shake.

Another cataclysm took place on January 14, 1907 in Kingston. At 3:30 p.m. three shocks occurred in 20 seconds. It is said every building was damaged and those in the lower part of the city were shattered, the falling bricks killing hundreds of people. A fire that soon broke out sent the commercial area up in flames, leaving £2,010,000 in property damage.

Fifty years after the fall of Kingston, the island was scrambled again on March 1. Three people were killed, and another piece of Port Royal slid into the sea. Western parishes got the worst of it, however. Electricity, light, water and telegraph supplies were interrupted. Churches in Montego Bay cracked and crumbled. On January 13, 1993, a 5.4-magnitude earthquake and 32 aftershocks caused significant damage in St Andrew and Kingston.

And according to Professor Simon Mitchell, seismologist and research director at the Earthquake Unit at the time, in reaction to the January 14, 2021, 7.3 earthquake, another major earthquake is imminent. He was quoted in The Sunday Gleaner of August 15, 2021 as saying, “Yes, we are at risk of a major earthquake because this quake, just like the one in Haiti 11 years ago, is on the same fault line that runs along the south-west of Haiti and comes into Jamaica.”

And when that “major earthquake” has come, would the authorities be saying if they had known? Now, over to the minister, the mayor, the city engineer and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management. Downtown Kingston, more than anywhere else in Jamaica, is sitting on an earthquake time bomb. Those structurally unsafe buildings and shells thereof must be torn down now.