The Real Lesson From Japan
I wanted to draw your attention again, just in case you missed it, to Ricochet's podcast with our member Outstripp, who lives in Japan. While the world obsesses over the lessons to be drawn from this about the safety of modern nuclear plants, the real--the massive--public policy lesson is being overlooked. As Outstripp notes, almost no buildings collapsed. This quake moved the main island by eight feet and shifted the entire planet nearly four inches off its axis. Yet the number of collapsed buildings was apparently tiny.
Bad buildings, not nuclear plants, are the world's unrecognized weapons of mass destruction. A quake of this size in Istanbul would collapse buildings throughout the city and kill hundreds of thousands. In Port au Prince, last year, a much smaller quake left a quarter of a million dead. Outstripp initially attributes the quality of the housing stock in Japan to the nation's wealth, but it's not that simple: Chile's per capita GDP is not that much higher than Turkey's, but its buildings are vastly safer. Outstripp also notes some of the cultural reasons for sound building construction in Japan, and makes some useful points about the building inspection process there.
If people around the world want to draw life-saving lessons from Japan, lessons about safe building construction in seismic zones are the most urgent ones to draw.
- Comment (7)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
Comments :
May '10
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
Building standards are very important, no doubt, and limiting the cheating by contractors too. But, again, I point out that there may have been something unusual about the side-to-side rolling motion of this earthquake. In the 1995 Kobe earthquake the motion was more vertical and 20% of buildings in the central area collapsed. Following that, building standards changed, but it is unthinkable that more than a small percentage of the buildings in the currently affected area were less than 16 years old.
BTW, I heard this morning that there were 80 bullet trains running in the area at the time and they all stopped automatically upon receiving a warning signal. No damage whatsoever. (80 seems a lot to me, but that's what the guy said.)
May '10
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
Kill hundreds of millions?
Jun '10
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
Istanbul has the advantage of being built on bedrock. I recall reading about it in a National Geographic article. I'll see on Monday if I can locate the issue at my school library.
Jan '11
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
Jan '11
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
According to the Center for Global Development, the Turkish government spent $1 billion to reinforce 3600 public buildings in Istanbul. At $280,000 per building, is that necessarily the best use of money in a country like Haiti?
I hope they spent some of that on those marvelous historical buildings, I loved Istanbul...
Dec '10
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
From the emanations and penumbras.
Re: The Real Lesson From Japan
Goodness! That was a typo--now corrected--and I'm really glad you caught it, thank you.