Earthquake Building

Nehmo Sergheyev · 2004-01-04T12:02:06+00:00

Every once in a while there's an earthquake somewhere that does somedecent damage. Recently it happened in Bam Iraq, and the city wasn'tstructurally prepared. 35,000 or so died.Satellite image of Bam after Quake. few more mud building pics's quake: Nothing 'natural' about this disaster"The earthquake in Bam reached a magnitude of 6.6 and killed more than20,000; yet an earthquake in San Francisco in 1989 that measured 7.1 andcaused $10 billion worth of damage, resulted in only 63 deaths."Buildings should be built to withstand a reasonable earthquake, even inan area where such events are unlikely.One of the newer safeguarding methods is rapid prediction and warning.Apparently, even in an area very near the earthquake-producing fault,you can get perhaps a minute - it depends - of warning. In this time,trains can stop, elevators can make it to the nearest floor, gas linescould be shut off, etc.But the main method of structural preparedness is designing toaccommodate lateral forces.What are the better methods to design and build for an earthquake?Here's a start