We can’t prevent earthquakes, but engineers and architects both have principles of building design that can keep people safe.
Home is a place to live. However, when an earthquake occurs, it can be deadly. It’s not earthquakes that kill people, but people die from collapsed houses.
Nearly 13 million illegal construction works in Turkey!
Strong earthquakes shook southeastern Turkey and northern Syria on February 6, turning entire streets and blocks of buildings in the city to rubble.
These are modern blocks built of reinforced concrete, like most of our buildings today.
How might they fail so badly?
Dr Yasemin Didem Aktas, structural engineer, born in Ankara, Turkey, specializing in seismic structures, teaching at University College London (UCL), UK, said: “After the earthquake of the year 1999 gathered in İzmit, we witnessed the ruins of buildings that had collapsed. There’s concrete we can crush in our hands. It’s construction fraud.”
According to the Turkish Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, in 2018, more than 50% of the buildings in the country, with nearly 13 million of them, were built illegally.
However, according to the Financial TimesIn 2018, the Turkish government issued an amnesty, in which owners of buildings built following 1999 can pay fines to legalize them.
A building in the Iskenderun area, Turkey collapsed like crêpes during the February 10 earthquake – Photo: KYODO NEWS
The worry is not only with Turkey and Syria
A map showing the confluence of population densities and areas of intense seismic activity is indeed worrisome.
The points of alarm in the world stretch from across northern India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan along the west coasts of North, Central and South America in a dense, almost unbroken line.
In particular, it is estimated that every 22 years, the San Andreas fault in central California, USA will experience an earthquake with a magnitude of 6 or higher.
Going back in time, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake measuring 7.8 also destroyed the city.
In countries with strict building codes, including the cities of Christchurch, New Zealand, and Tohoku, Japan in 2011, it has proven impossible to blame total devastation on poor regulation, corruption or poor quality construction in some developing economies.
The main problem is whether there are enough “talent and material resources” to meet earthquake-resistant techniques in construction or not?
Architects and builders in Japan all put earthquake resistance on top when building houses – Photo: FINANCIAL TIMES
Old memories reminding Japan
Still haunted by memories of the 1923 Kantō earthquake – a massive earthquake that flattened the traditional wooden buildings of historic Tokyo and Yokohama, killing 140,000 people, Japanese engineers and builders continues to innovate.
Famous Japanese architects and builders all put earthquake resistance as the first issue when designing and building.
Recent earthquakes in Kobe, Hebei and a city in Mexico have demonstrated that it is not skyscrapers, but mid-rise apartment buildings, that are becoming the most vulnerable and dangerous type of home when earthquake occurs.
It is a harsh truth that most residential construction in the world is completely unmanaged, or if it is, its effectiveness is eroded by corruption and neglect.
It is therefore difficult to accept that each earthquake entails a protracted human tragedy. And building houses for earthquakes has been, is and always will be the goal of all countries on Earth.