The death toll from the powerful twin earthquakes across Turkey and Syria has surpassed 12,000 people.
Time is running out to pull survivors from the thousands of buildings which toppled as people slept.
It’s prompting concerns in Aotearoa that the current system used to determine seismic building safety is confusing and potentially dangerous.
Canterbury University lecturer Dr Toni Collins completed a PHD on the Christchurch earthquakes and told Tova O'Brien that New Zealand needs to do more for its building health and safety.
"We have two acts that currently regulate building safety in earthquakes in Aotearoa - one is the Health and Safety at Work Act and the other is the Building Act," Collins said.
"At the moment, buildings that are identified as earthquake-prone are the buildings that need to be seismically assessed, but the problem is that there's a legal definition under the Building Act that only captures a small number of our building stock.
"What that means is that most buildings in New Zealand, building owners and business owners, are not required to actually have their buildings seismically assessed, so we don't know how they will perform in an earthquake or, particularly, a large earthquake."
Collins told O'Brien there will be many more homes unable to endure an earthquake that are not under the Building Act, including many of Aotearoa's modern home builds.
"We know from the Canterbury earthquake that more of the older style buildings are under the Building Act - that's the pre 1976 buildings and the pre 1935 buildings," Collins said.
"But we've also seen from the Kaikōura earthquake in 2016 that some of the more modern buildings such as Statistics House failed after a large earthquake."
Collins said if the Government clarified what homes have and haven't been seismically assessed as well as told building and business owners what standards they need to meet, this would help solve the issue.
"The regulator that is tasked with this job is WorkSafe and they set out a policy statement in 2018… but it actually muddied the waters more," she said.
"It talked about - if your building is earthquake-prone or if you're meeting the requirements under the Building Act, remembering that the building act only applies to earthquake-prone buildings, then you're fine.
"But then it also goes on to say that you should be proactive and know what the latest scientific and engineering advice is on buildings, so it's very confusing for building and business owners as to what they actually need to meet… and whether they need to get their buildings assessed.
"We argue that the government needs to clarify this and make it clear - are they required to meet the standards under the Health and Safety at Work Act, which is a higher standard? And, as far as I'm concerned, make sure that occupants of buildings are going to be protected?
"Or if that's not what the government intends and if the cost is too high versus the risk involved, then make that clear too and say, okay, that's not required."
Listen to the full interview between Dr Toni Collins and Tova above.
You can also download the full interview on the Tova podcast, and listen on the go.
