Haitian buildings, apart from the presidential palace, were never meant to be built to earthquake standards anyway...
Posted on 01/29/2010 9:59:23 PM PST by myknowledge
The sight of thousands of collapsed structures in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, may lead you to wonder whether a strong earthquake could cause equally widespread, catastrophic building collapse in an American city.
Fortunately, diligent engineering, up-to-date building codes and sound construction techniques ensure that many structures in America would withstand earthquake forces. But could some of our buildings, especially old ones, be vulnerable if seismic forces are sufficiently strong?
Age, per se, does not determine earthquake survivability, which instead depends on the inherent strength of a building's overall structural framework. Old or new, any poorly engineered or cheaply constructed building always will be vulnerable to severe earthquake-induced damage or collapse.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Haitian buildings, apart from the presidential palace, were never meant to be built to earthquake standards anyway...
Had any other quake anywhere close to this one struck Haiti in the last couple centuries?
Most of those collapsed buildings in Haiti appear to have little or no steel rebar in the walls and roofs not properly anchored to the exterior walls.
Duh! There is an invention called rebar that could saved lives and building.
Yes. Massive earthquakes that alter the landscape significantly are common along this fault, e.g., the quake that sank Port Royal in Jamaica in the 18thC, Martinique, Where a 7.4 hit offshore just the other day, etc. etc.
In the 1780's an earthquake and tsunami devastated Southern Italy, changing the course of rivers, obliterating cities. Here in the US, a massive quake along the New Madrid fault in 1811 0r 12, actually reversed the flow of the Mississippi! At the time, few people lived in the areas hardest hit, but if it happened today, the shifting earth would level some cities!
Here's a site with a list of all the significant tremblers:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/
We (Vancouver Island & Pacific N.W. of U.S.) are bracing ourselves for a mag 9.0 (100 times more powerful than the one that hit Haiti). It's due any day now (sometime within the next 200 years, that is).
No. The last quake that struck in the proximity of Haiti was sometime in the 18th century.
http://romanconcrete.com/docs/bamboo1966/BambooReinforcedConcreteFeb1966.htm
Even sugar cane would be a big improvement:
Just about any resilient material, with good tensile strength would help.
http://romanconcrete.com/docs/bamboo1966/BambooReinforcedConcreteFeb1966.htm
Even sugar cane would be a big improvement:
Just about any resilient material, with good tensile strength would help.
I was going to say. They don’t have enough money to afford much more than a particle board lean-to with a corrugated tin roof. Cinder blocks would probably do a number on a body, though.
I think that rebar would be the best. I survived the Northridge quake and if the buildings did not have rebar, the enite San Fernando Valley and maybe the rest of LA would be still recovering,
Reminds me of Queen Nan in her 747 jet going home every week end on the tax dollar--too good for the smaller jet used by previous speakers.
It reminds me of Obama flying someplace every week and talking---talking, while living high on our dollar.
These d@#n self proclaimed rulers do not care for anything but power. They are living high on tax dollars, while making money personally at the same time--Pelosi, Feinstein, Jane Harmon, all of CA are multi millionaires, and they will still retire with the best health care in the world and their ENTIRE salaries yearly.
Our country is not only suffering from being ruled by these elites; it is suffering from having too many unthinking voters who just like to hear a slick talker.
Speaking of slick talkers, I hate for people to give Obama praise for being eloquent, a great speaker, etc. He has learned a few delivery tricks, but he comes across as arrogant, shallow, and egotistic, and he only lies when his lips move.
vaudine
There’s a bunch of things you can add to concrete that will perform the same function as rebar. Rebar is easier to work with for large-scale projects, that’s all.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-02/uoc--suv022608.php
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.
The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium. But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.
"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Her baby, named Woodson, lay still across her lap, looking even thinner than the slim 6 pounds 3 ounces he weighed at birth.
Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.
Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.
The price of food commodities are rising every where. Have you noticed the cost of a box of cereal or a loaf of bread? This is not due solely to the price of petroleum. Exacerbating the situation is the amount of land taken out of food production for bio-fuel crops.
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I was shocked to read that article, what I do not understand, is that in many underdeveloped countries, people do at least plant a vegetable garden, some potatoes and tomatoes...keep chickens. Do these people provide nothing for themselves?
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