Assessing Households’ Preparedness for Earthquakes in Gbawe, Accra

Abstract

Episodic earth tremors occurrence in Gbawe signal looming earthquakes, a major threat to many households, lives and properties. One basic approach to reduce future risk and increase the resilience of communities to earthquake is for communities to create household’s preparedness plan for earthquakes. The research explored the basic issue of what preparedness for earthquake means and its relevance to people in Gbawe. The main objective of this paper is to assess the extent of households readiness for earthquake; qualitative research involving collecting and analysing non-numerical data using questionnaires and interviews were used as the basic method. Household preparedness was measured with fourteen (14) earthquake list of items deemed as basic necessities needed during emergency response to earthquake. If an individual acted on 6 of the 14 indicators, they were deemed poorly prepared. Rating was done based on the number of indicators acquired by a household. The study revealed that, no household was very well prepared; 3.3% respondents were well prepared for earthquakes, 10% were moderately prepared, 16.7% were averagely prepared, 20% were below averagely prepared, and 50% were not prepared for earthquake emergencies. About 90% respondents had less than 6 of the emergency necessities and therefore were not well prepared for earthquakes. The study recommends capacity building of households to improve upon their preparedness for earthquakes. Keywords : household, preparedness, earthquakes, Gbawe, mitigation, risk DOI: 10.7176/JEES/12-11-03 Publication date: November 30 th 2022