Eco-briefs
HONDURAS: Promoting Quake-Resistant Construction

TEGUCIGALPA, Mar 15 (Tierramérica).- Honduran lawmakers, entrepreneurs and the government's emergency commission, COPECO, are promoting new regulations to ensure construction of earthquake-resistant buildings.

Honduran lawmakers, entrepreneurs and the government's emergency commission, COPECO, are promoting new regulations to ensure construction of earthquake-resistant buildings.

Honduras is not exempt from temblors like the ones that hit Haiti and Chile, "the country is highly vulnerable and the construction of our homes and buildings will easily succumb to a high-magnitude quake," COPECO coordinator Lisandro Rosales told Tierramérica.

In April 2009, a quake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale, with an epicenter in the Caribbean Sea 15 kilometers off the Honduran coast, caused major damage - but the country escaped disaster. Geologists warned about higher activity along the tectonic faults in the Atlantic, Caribbean and central region.

Lorena Herrera, legislator for the governing National Party, told Tierramérica that she hopes the new legal code is approved soon in order "to regulate with greater ethics and sanctions for those who construct homes and buildings."