INTRODUCTION

 As this Article goes to print, Toll in the most unfortunate, recent Turkey and Syria Earthquakes has crossed 33000 and no. of missing/injured is mounting. Loss of large no of Buildings and key infrastructure remains to be assessed, while the rescue operations are on, on a big scale, assisted by multi country teams. All of this is a grim reminder that it’s poorly designed and poorly constructed buildings that kill people and not the Earthquakes.

 It thus becomes critically important for us to review how safe is our built environment against a likelihood of a serious earthquake, especially our healthcare facilities to assist in any post-disaster rehabilitation and recovery. India is located in a seismically active zone and almost 66% of it is prone to earthquakes. Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and National Building Code (NBC) provide guidelines for earthquake resistant design of buildings in India, and the objective of this article is to look at the provisions of the current Codes and see how far away we are from global standards for earthquake-resistant design of hospitals.

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