Devrim
15th January 2010, 09:09
The was a vaguely interesting piece in today's English Guardian,The Haiti quake must not be dismissed as an 'act of God':
The disaster that struck Haiti (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-earthquake-rescue-operation), in the form of an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, has delivered death and devastation, ruin and suffering, on a deeply tragic scale. But this was not an "act of God", in that it was not an event that could not have been foreseen. While earthquakes are not as frequent as hurricanes in the Caribbean, they are common. Today it is well known that poor design and construction practice results in buildings that are sure to collapse during earthquakes of this magnitude, killing and maiming those caught in them and leaving a trail of social disruption, sometimes for generations. Japan and the US state of California have improved their building codes and construction standards to reflect their seismic vulnerability, and the lethality of earthquakes in both places has been massively reduced during the last century. We know how to mitigate the devastating effects of earthquakes.
I don't agree with all his conclusions but the idea that earthquakes whilst not preventable are something that can be prepared for, is obviously true.
Earthquakes are quite frequent in this country. I have never experienced one personally, all we get in Ankara is the shakes from more distant earthquakes though waking up at six in the morning to discover that your bed is moving across the room is quite frightening in itself. Many of my friends have, and I consider myself quite lucky.
One image that I recall vividly from the TV is of a small town in the East that had been hit by an earthquake, and all that was left standing was the Mosque.
Having a more materialist bent than my next door neighbour the imam, who saw this as the work of God, though why God should have chosen to destroy the girls school next door killing all the children in it was beyond me, I recognised that in the period that that Mosque was built they used to build things properly whereas today things are just knocked up as cheaply as possible.
Basically if you build well and plan for it an Earthquake is not as devastating.
We expect an earthquake to occur soon in İstanbul:
Istanbul is situated near the North Anatolian fault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Anatolian_Fault) line, which runs from northern Anatolia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia) to the Marmara Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Marmara). Two tectonic plates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics), the African and the Eurasian, push against each other here. This fault line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_%28geology%29) has been responsible for several deadly earthquakes in the region throughout history. In 1509 a catastrophic earthquake caused a tsunami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami) which broke over the sea-walls of the city, destroying over 100 mosques and killing 10,000 people. In 1766 the Eyüp Sultan Mosque was largely destroyed. The 1894 earthquake caused the collapse of many parts of the Grand Bazaar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Bazaar,_Istanbul). A devastating earthquake on August 17, 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_%C4%B0zmit_earthquake), with its epicenter in nearby İzmit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0zmit), left 18,000 dead and many more homeless.[26] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0stanbul#cite_note-25) In all of these earthquakes, the devastating effects are a result of the building density and poor construction of buildings. Seismologists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismology) predict another earthquake, possibly measuring magnitude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale) 7.0, occurring before 2025.
Istanbul today is the 5th biggest city in the world. Think about what happened in Haiti, and then think that Port-au-Prince is relatively a very small city of just over one million. One think that is similar about them though is poor building quality and shanty towns, which tend to collapse on people killing them.
Devrim
The disaster that struck Haiti (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/haiti-earthquake-rescue-operation), in the form of an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale, has delivered death and devastation, ruin and suffering, on a deeply tragic scale. But this was not an "act of God", in that it was not an event that could not have been foreseen. While earthquakes are not as frequent as hurricanes in the Caribbean, they are common. Today it is well known that poor design and construction practice results in buildings that are sure to collapse during earthquakes of this magnitude, killing and maiming those caught in them and leaving a trail of social disruption, sometimes for generations. Japan and the US state of California have improved their building codes and construction standards to reflect their seismic vulnerability, and the lethality of earthquakes in both places has been massively reduced during the last century. We know how to mitigate the devastating effects of earthquakes.
I don't agree with all his conclusions but the idea that earthquakes whilst not preventable are something that can be prepared for, is obviously true.
Earthquakes are quite frequent in this country. I have never experienced one personally, all we get in Ankara is the shakes from more distant earthquakes though waking up at six in the morning to discover that your bed is moving across the room is quite frightening in itself. Many of my friends have, and I consider myself quite lucky.
One image that I recall vividly from the TV is of a small town in the East that had been hit by an earthquake, and all that was left standing was the Mosque.
Having a more materialist bent than my next door neighbour the imam, who saw this as the work of God, though why God should have chosen to destroy the girls school next door killing all the children in it was beyond me, I recognised that in the period that that Mosque was built they used to build things properly whereas today things are just knocked up as cheaply as possible.
Basically if you build well and plan for it an Earthquake is not as devastating.
We expect an earthquake to occur soon in İstanbul:
Istanbul is situated near the North Anatolian fault (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Anatolian_Fault) line, which runs from northern Anatolia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolia) to the Marmara Sea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Marmara). Two tectonic plates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics), the African and the Eurasian, push against each other here. This fault line (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_%28geology%29) has been responsible for several deadly earthquakes in the region throughout history. In 1509 a catastrophic earthquake caused a tsunami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami) which broke over the sea-walls of the city, destroying over 100 mosques and killing 10,000 people. In 1766 the Eyüp Sultan Mosque was largely destroyed. The 1894 earthquake caused the collapse of many parts of the Grand Bazaar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Bazaar,_Istanbul). A devastating earthquake on August 17, 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_%C4%B0zmit_earthquake), with its epicenter in nearby İzmit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0zmit), left 18,000 dead and many more homeless.[26] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0stanbul#cite_note-25) In all of these earthquakes, the devastating effects are a result of the building density and poor construction of buildings. Seismologists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismology) predict another earthquake, possibly measuring magnitude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale) 7.0, occurring before 2025.
Istanbul today is the 5th biggest city in the world. Think about what happened in Haiti, and then think that Port-au-Prince is relatively a very small city of just over one million. One think that is similar about them though is poor building quality and shanty towns, which tend to collapse on people killing them.
Devrim