Let's Talk About All the Ways People Didn't
Die in That Taiwan Earthquake
PJ Media,
by
Stephen Green
Original Article
Posted By: Dreadnought,
4/4/2024 12:50:20 AM
It was a terrible quake that struck near Hualien City, Taiwan, just as the workday was beginning on Wednesday. Details aren't yet complete but, so far, nine people have been reported killed, over a thousand more injured, and 152 trapped in damaged buildings, quarries, and other places.
At 7.4 on the Richter Scale, the Hualien shifter was three times more powerful and released 5.6 times more energy than the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that dropped part of San Francisco's elevated Embarcadaro freeway, killed 63 people, and injured 3,757 more.
“It was pretty scary,” a visiting American told NBC News. “In all the years that I’ve lived here and
Post Reply
Reminder: “WE ARE A SALON AND NOT A SALOON”
Your thoughts, comments, and ideas are always welcome here. But we ask you to please be mindful and respectful. Threatening or crude language doesn't persuade anybody and makes the conversation less enjoyable for fellow L.Dotters.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DVC 4/4/2024 1:59:27 AM (No. 1692238)
Very good story.
FTA: "Despite the power of the quake and the devastation you've already seen, the real story is that the quake isn't a bigger story"
And the 728 ton suspended steel ball in the middle of a giant skyscraper....as a tuned mass damper, is brilliant, but really just standard good vibration engineering. The mass of the ball and the length of the cables supporting it permits it to have a natural swinging frequency to keep it swinging exactly the opposite
direction as the building. Building sways south and the huge pendulum swings north, pulling the building
back towards it's normal center point.
Cool engineering. It may bore a lot of folks, but this is the stuff that engineers love to design and build.
Well done, Taiwan. I have a Taiwanese built metal lathe that is a very good machine, extremely accurate
in it's design and construction.
25 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 4/4/2024 3:12:37 AM (No. 1692250)
For a short while when I was a clerk typist just starting to work for the City of Los Angeles (the second time around), I worked for the Earthquake Safety Division. Their motto is, "Earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do." I found this article fascinating. The picture of the building that was leaning so heavily, yet still intact. That was amazing! All the people were able to be rescued, instead of being squashed! In 1998 their 7.6 quake killed approximately 2,400 people. In this 7.4 only nine people have been reported killed. That is and amazing difference. Better living through engineering!
22 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
DVC 4/4/2024 9:40:25 AM (No. 1692395)
#2, is exactly correct. That building, knocked off it's foundations, but even in an extreme tilt, basically still intact is just amazing, great engineering.
3 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 4/4/2024 10:14:11 AM (No. 1692416)
The world can learn from Taiwan. Would Communist China adopt their building practices? Doubtful. The Taiwan quake was also compared to the 1989 San Francisco quake. What are the odds Taiwan has had more new building than San Francisco? The American left is anti-business, and San Francisco is on the far-left end of the spectrum.
2 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Axeman 4/4/2024 10:14:24 AM (No. 1692417)
About 15 years ago I was in Hualien City for some work for a couple of weeks. I was put up in a nice touristy hotel, floor seven of an 11 story building. One morning at about 4am, I was awake and up because of jet lag, there was a mid 6 earthquake. The floor I was standing on swayed a good 9-10 feet at the peak and rolled around for a minute or so. I just stood there and rode it out, what else could I do?
The next day nobody even mentioned about it. I brought it up and they said, "Oh, yeah, they happen all the time."
The only place I found any information was on the USGS site.
5 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 4/4/2024 10:22:09 AM (No. 1692423)
Re #5, you provide additional evidence of good engineering in Taiwan and that people can get used to anything, especially if they make their structures able to stand up to these all too common events.
4 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
beancounter 4/4/2024 10:58:19 AM (No. 1692453)
San Francisco’s Embarcadero freeway was not damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake because the part that had been built was dismantled years before for aesthetic reasons. It was the Nimitz freeway in Oakland that collapsed causing most of the deaths from the earthquake.
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
DVC 4/4/2024 11:16:45 AM (No. 1692467)
Re #7, the freeway collapse only occurred where the freeway was built on old parts of the San Fran Bay which had been filled with non-compacted earth. Where natural bedrock was beneath the freeway, it stood. This noncompacted earth fill nearly liquifies during heavy earthquake lateral shaking. This quake had almost zero up and down component, essentially all lateral shaking, although this is common.
The same problem was seen in the SanFran marina district where homes on old fill just fell down and homes on more solid groud or bedrock stood.
Paying the price for historic errors when filling in marshy parts of the bay involved just dumping dirt.
3 people like this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Dreadnought"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)