Pilot Rehabilitation Activities for Tbilisi Earthquake

PROJECT SUMMARY

Background:

On April 25, 2002 at late evening hours the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi with more than 1.4 million inhabitants and urban area of about 70 square kilometers was stricken by destructive earthquake of macro-seismic intensity VII to VIII on MSK-64 intensity scale in the epicentral area. Earthquake damage to 5,108 residential buildings classified as unsafe for living, created over 18,000 households with 69,000 inhabitants of homeless population. The repair and rehabilitation cost was estimated at 187 million USD, out of which the largest amount of 115.2 million USD (61.6%) is estimated for repair, structural upgrading, and functional improvement of low rise residential masonry buildings, 15.5 million USD (8.3%) for essential public buildings, 41.3 million USD (22.1%) for other public buildings, and 15.0 million USD (8.0%) for rehabilitation of urban infrastructure. The estimated cost presents only repair, structural upgrading and functional improvement of described usage categories of buildings and urban infrastructure, and does not reflect direct and indirect economic losses caused by April 25, 2002 Tbilisi Earthquake, which in total will be significantly larger than estimated cost for repair and rehabilitation:

Overall objective:

The objective of this project is to assist the Government of Georgia in its efforts to alleviate the impact of the earthquake of 25 April 2002 as well as to strengthen local capacities to respond to similar disasters.

Immediate objective:

The objective of the project is twofold: to rehabilitate selected educational and health facilities damaged by earthquake while simultaneously establishing and testing pilot mechanisms, which would serve as the verified basis for implementation of similar rehabilitation projects and improvement of seismic protection in the country

The project envisages:

• Establishment of the technical support capacity for the implementation of the pilot rehabilitation activities

• Implementation of pilot rehabilitation projects on the selected priority sites in accordance with seismic safety standards and norms

Expected outputs:

• A group of experts (Technical Support Unit – TSU) is identified and works under direct supervision of UNDP Georgia to lead the planning and implementation of rehabilitation works.

• Construction/rehabilitation Team (CRT) is in place to rehabilitate selected priority sites in accordance with modern engineering/seismic safety standards and norms

• Selected priority sites damaged by earthquake are rehabilitated and fully operational

• A Model project on structural upgrading and design is piloted for its application in construction/rehabilitation works of similar nature

Cooperation with the Government and donors:

Immediately after the earthquake, the Government of Georgia requested UNDP to facilitate the coordination of international assistance and represent the multilateral donor community in the Earthquake Coordination Council chaired by the Ministry of Urbanization and Construction. In response to this request May 2002, UNDP fielded a consultancy mission to Georgia to assist the Government in assessing the damage caused by the earthquake and provide the estimated cost of the rehabilitation and repair works needed. The resulting Expert Report provided the solid overview of the geo-seismic specificity of Georgia and Tbilisi, together with the recommendations for seismic protection, reconstruction and planning, disaster preparedness in the City of Tbilisi as well as the suggestions on the proposed structure for development and implementation of rehabilitation programme. In addition to the report two comprehensive project documents were elaborated and submitted to the Government to be used optionally with various donor-funding modalities, such as the World Bank, etc. Simultaneously UNDP launched its own pilot rehabilitation activities in cooperation with the Governments of Switzerland and Germany (through its Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (‘’KfW’’) aimed at reconstruction of selected educational and health facilities.