Mexico: an urgent school for the children of NPH

There have been two earthquakes in May, in both Mexico and Peru, but thankfully all NPH children, staff and volunteers are safe, and no damage has been done to the NPH buildings or infrastructure. 

On May 16th in Mexico, there was a 4.9-5.2* magnitude earthquake with an epicenter in Arcelia, Guerrero. The NPH high school and offices in Cuernavaca did not feel the trembling, but it was felt in Miacatlán. The children were in school, and quickly evacuated per protocol, and an evaluation was conducted to ensure that the buildings were safe and not damaged. 

NPH National Director Rafael Bermudez recently sent out an update on recontruction.

"A crew has been working hard to finish repairing the earthquake damage done to the children’s main dining room and to add support beams – all of which we had planned to have completed before the rainy season began in June. But the rains started early. Thunderstorms and fierce winds crumpled the canvas-covered structure that we have been using for the girls’ dining area. The boy’s canopies are smaller and lighter, and so withstood the onslaught. While works continued we put up the smaller canopies for most of the girls and the rest ate in a covered area outside of kindergarten.

It makes life a bit more difficult, but with faith in God and good friends like you, we continue on. Thank you for your continued support as we repair earthquake damage and turn old dormitories built for 50+ children into “casas” (family-style homes), each for a maximum of 16 children. So even from adversity, something good can come for our children."

All of our schools suffered damages on different levels. In order to ensure our children’s safety, the first measure we took was obtaining a structural safety assessment for all the buildings, which helped us to define the work that needed to be done. 

Based on the structural reports, the first stage began by restructuring the dividing walls. The worst damage we had in the classrooms was the separation of the beams and walls from the columns, endangering the whole structure. The junction of the beams with the columns were repaired using steel beams, and the roofs were reinforced.

In the computer room on the second floor, the reinforcement works began based on a structural calculation carried out by a Director Responsible for the Work (DRO). Steel shirts with brackets were added in the most damaged areas, and IPR struts with links were added in the center of the clearing of the computer room. All areas are clean and debris removal was carried out.

The DRO, Engineer-Architect Óscar del López, led an inspection tour to supervise the reinforcement works. He gave us his approval by means of the final ruling on structural security.

To comply with school authorities, we delivered the structural safety reports of each school to IEBEM authorities, thus, at last, our children were able to return to their classrooms.

Demolition and recontruction of enclosing wall and walls inside the property are in process. Currently, reinforcement of the damaged arches outside the transportation area is being carried out. They are mostly being rebuilt with the same finishing of the original arches. The perimeter wall’s completion was previously established by the authorities. It was rebuilt with a stone finish on the inside and plastered on the outside. The top finish was made in the same manner following the existing design, in accordance with INAH’s guidelines.

More work needs to be carried out in several buildings, including main kitchen and dining room, and repairing the water tower.

In its first stage, the rebuilding force of NPH Mexico focused on defyning the priority needs for the children's daily lives: housing and schooling. Two sets of actions took place: immediate repairing of the structures that were only lightly damaged by the quake and assessment of those structures that needed to be demolished and rebuilt afresh.

The works ultimated as of December 31 include interventions on some of the dorms and all the school buildings.

Middle school children's dorm. The cracks in the middle school children’s rooms were repaired with concrete. We still need to paint. PHOTO 1

Walls and columns in kindergarden classrooms. In our schools the structure that supports our buildings is made of concrete columns and beams, the divisions are brickwalls that do not have any structural function but to divide the classrooms. These divisions separated from the columns and beams and are being bonded back again. For the repairs we needed to have steel liners in the columns to reinforce the classrooms. PHOTO 2

Elementary school second floor walls. All the classrooms' walls in the second floor were reinvorced and the concrete slab will be reinforced with steels beams. PHOTO 3

Elementary and middle school roofs. Damages were fixed, and the steel rods were also covered with concrete. They have not been painted yet. PHOTO 4

Enclosing wall in High School. The cracked enclosing wall was demolished and rebuilt, the construction lasted over 1 month. PHOTO 5

Rebuilding High Young School Men's dorms. A whole external wall will have to be demolished due to the severe damage it suffered. Before demolishing it we have to reinforce the whole building inside since the wall has a structural function.To reinforce the building we are placing 12 concrete and 8 steel columns that go all the way from the ground level to the roof of the second floor. Between the columns we will place steel beams connected to the columns with steel plates. The works began end of November and they will take12 weeks approximately . PHOTO 6

Our next priorities to ensure the daily routine of the children be restablished include the demolition and rebuilding of 2691 ft2 of the enclosing walls (main facade), the complete remakeof the boys' bath bathrooms in High School and the urgent reinforcement of teh kitchen and dining hall building.

Thank you for your essential support.