The cover story “Stuck in a fault line” (March 9), misses one fundamental question:
Why is so much money being asked of owners of established buildings for improvements that will make only a negligible change to the long-term risk of earthquake survival, compared with other risks in life? The cost-benefit ratio is out of all proportion to the actual risk.
Consider the past 100 years and the total number of deaths and serious injuries from earthquakes in New Zealand over that time. This total is not influenced by the recent building code adjustments. Now compare that total with the annual road toll and related serious injuries. The annual figure and the once-in- 100-years figure are not too far apart. Yet people still make the choice to travel on our roads knowing this high risk. How about giving people the same choice to enter an earthquakeprone building that has far less risk of harm compared with road travel?
Ross Corbett (Hastings)
The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment seems of the same mindset as the US major who, during the Vietnam War, was quoted as saying, “It became
