Earthquakes 2015

Main entrance damage at IBA

Main entrance damage at IBA

Earthquake damage
During the earthquakes of 2015, IBA unfortunately suffered some structural damage, leading to our buildings being unsafe and the cancellation of our Buddhist teaching program for that year.

The office and dormitory buildings were particularly damaged and need to be extensively repaired with procedures called retro-fitting and shear walling. This involves cutting away the walls and floors from the structural columns, reinforcing the columns then encasing the whole in a solid concrete wall – a time consuming process. In the office block, a wall of our Manjushri library collapsed completely, while the remaining walls were cracked.

In the main shrine hall, the ceiling fell down. 

Our perimeter brick wall was left leaning out over the street, so it had to be urgently demolished and rebuilt. The main entrance way is part of this wall and it too was badly damaged.

These are the main works which need to be done. Various other smaller repairs also need to be made, such as plastering, painting, fixing the electrical and plumbing systems, etc.

We are endeavouring to repair this damage and make our buildings better able to withstand earthquakes in the future. To see how are repairs are going, please go to our “Repair progress” page. Here is the link – http://internationalbuddhistacademy.org/earthquake-repair-progress/repair-progress/