Ali Manafpour, of engineer Halcrow, draws up a report that shows Iran paid a high price in death and injuries for failure to check that houses were built properly
More than 10,000 prefabricated homes are needed in Bam, the Iranian city largely demolished by an earthquake in December.

The assessment was made by Ali Manafpour, an Iranian-born earthquake specialist at consultant engineer Halcrow. He has visited the site of the Bam earthquake and has drawn up a report on the lessons to be learned from it.

More than 40,000 people died in the disaster, and a further 60,000 were made homeless. Many of the houses crumbled easily because they were constructed poorly.

Manafpour said he might have underestimated the amount of temporary accommodation required. Although 10,000 units would be enough to house the typical five to six person family unit in Bam, people from surrounding villages had moved into the city since the disaster.

These people often lived in poorer conditions than those in Bam and believed that by moving to the city they might ultimately obtain better housing when the reconstruction programme got going.

They were therefore prepared to live in tents in Bam for a short while, even though they had homes elsewhere.

  Manafpour said: "Someone I was talking to in Bam said that where there had been 50 houses, there were now 300 tents. Some people have moved in to Bam thinking that surrounding rural villages won't be given any help now that Bam authorities are likely to be the focus of government attention."

Temporary prefabricated shelters had started to be erected in Bam when Manafpour visited earlier this year. These can be built in one day, although it seems doubtful that Iranian contractors have the capacity to rehouse all of Bam's residents in this way.

Manafpour said that he had seen two types of accommodation of this kind, both too small for the large families that would have to live in them for about two years. One type was 5 × 2.5 m, the other 6 × 7 m.

People have moved into Bam to benefit from reconstruction

Ali Manafpour

He added that the Iranian authorities had considered moving the city but had finally decided to rebuild Bam on its original site.

Manafpour said Bam's economy depended on its staying put: "They have the palm trees in Bam, which is the main export. It has the best quality dates in the world. First they will have to remove the rubble; after that they can start reconstruction."

Manafpour's report on the disaster will be published next month. It is likely to conclude that poor construction practices made the death toll higher.

In Iran, the owner generally commissions an architect or engineer to do the design work on a typical one to two-storey house. A structural engineer is then expected to inspect it during construction to ensure that it meets earthquake design codes.

But Manafpour, who lived in Iran until 1997, said: "In my own experience these engineers rarely made checks. It is difficult to enforce the practice. There is a lack of control of engineers and authorities tend to ignore it."

Manafpour noted that most commercial buildings – which tend to comply with the earthquake code – were still standing. He said: "They were damaged inside, but at least they hadn't collapsed on people."

He made a plea to governments and engineers to adhere to design codes.

He said "In Bam, there are still kids in the streets playing as normal amongst the rubble. They even asked me to take pictures.

"But what are the long-term psychological impacts? It is necessary to stop the same practices happening again.

A city turned to dust

At 5.26am on 26 December 2003, the earth beneath the ancient Iranian city of Bam began shaking. Within seconds the shock, measuring between 6.3 and 6.5 on the Richter scale, had turned 70% of the buildings to rubble and dust.

The city’s 2000-year-old mud-brick citadel crumbled as quickly as the cheap accommodation built for the city’s tens of thousands of migrant workers.

Bam’s two main hospitals were virtually destroyed. It is thought that as many as 43,000 people were killed in the disaster.

Aftershocks, one reaching 5.3 on the Richter scale, rocked the site. Buildings collapsed easily because much of the housing, built for the rapidly growing population, was shoddily built. With corruption rampant and local building regulations barely enforced, it had been easy for unscrupulous developers to construct flimsy multistorey buildings.

Builders did not bother to improve on the old homes in the city centre, with their mud walls and domed roofs. Instead they merely built extra floors on to the weak lower storeys.

Many modern houses and offices had heavy concrete roofs that were barely supported by weak walls and foundations.