At a meeting with the residents of the Zhetysu District, the mayor of Almaty Erbolat Dosayev said that the city authorities will tighten earthquake resistance requirements for buildings, QazMonitor reports.
Due to high seismicity in and around the city area, Almaty’s master plan includes proposals for seismic resistance provided by local research institutes, namely Kazakh Research and Design Institute of Construction and Architecture (KazNIISA).
“[The institute] issues standards and gives specifications for the construction. We've already put a cap on building no more than nine stories in the upper parts of the city, where the seismic activity is high and fracture zones are located,” said Dosayev.
He hopes that the introduced regulatory changes will begin to take effect by spring so that authorities will be able to enforce new seismic standards by the fall of this year.