[HN Gopher] How to Engineer Buildings That Withstand Earthquakes
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       How to Engineer Buildings That Withstand Earthquakes
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 11 points
       Date   : 2023-02-22 22:42 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
        
       | zepearl wrote:
       | > _Many seismologists thought the East Anatolian Fault--the one
       | involved in the Turkey-Syria quakes--was likely to produce a
       | maximum magnitude of 7.4 or 7.5. But the February 6 earthquake
       | was a 7.8--about four times bigger on the logarithmic scale of
       | earthquake magnitudes. So it is possible that some structures
       | built to code in Turkey may simply have experienced more force
       | than they were built to withstand, Taciroglu says._
       | 
       | There were probably some such cases, anyway this is as well
       | interesting:
       | 
       | From https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/erzin-turkey-
       | earthquake-b... :
       | 
       |  _The city that didn 't collapse: How Erzin became a haven from
       | Turkey's earthquake - Residents and officials say Erzin suffered
       | no deaths and saw no buildings collapse, and they credit a long-
       | standing policy not to allow construction that violated the
       | country's codes._
       | 
       | From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzin,_Turkey :
       | 
       |  _Erzin was the sole district of Hatay Province to have none of
       | its buildings collapse in the aftermath of the 2023 Turkey-Syria
       | earthquake, despite being closer to the epicenter than other
       | cities such as Iskenderun and Antakya which suffered greater
       | damage. The mayor, Okkes Elmasoglu claimed it was due to strict
       | construction of housing; the district mostly consists of single
       | houses, local authorities prohibited unsafe and substandard
       | construction to a much greater degree than nearby areas, and
       | apartment blocks do not have many floors. Even older structures
       | such as houses from 60 years ago survived the earthquake.[4]
       | Additionally, the city had fared relatively well during previous
       | earthquakes. However, engineers and scientists (such as Omer
       | Emre) attributed the town escaping unscathed to geological
       | factors, such as Erzin 's relatively higher sea level compared to
       | surrounding towns, and it being built upon harder ground,
       | consisting of bedrock and coarser grains than sand, compared to
       | softer, water-laden sediments like that of cities to the south._
        
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       (page generated 2023-02-23 23:00 UTC)