Post history

History for ConanTroutman

Earthquaking

Back to topic

Current version

Posted November 26, 2016 00:48 · last edited November 26, 2016 00:49

Oceanic6 wrote:

Doesn't seem like our journalists are asking serious questions as to why these newish buildings are not able to survive these earthquakes. Queensgate cinema, readings car park, state services.  Surely they will launch an enquiry.  Someone's head needs to roll. It's embarrassing.

The Statistics NZ one seems to be the only one that actually failed though. The others all stood up to the quakes and anyone inside would have survived(or at least, the building wouldn't have killed them - furniture might have). The problem is that people seem to have been rushed back into buildings after a very superficial inspection. Building codes are set up so that the building stays standing in a shake and people can get out - not so that the building is safe to occupy afterwards in aftershocks or future quakes. 

My work is a 1940s building, 8 storeys high, and they inspected the whole thing in 2 hours. There's massive cracks in the plaster and in some places you can see the crack extends deep into concrete behind the plaster. I'm not a structural engineer but two hours seems like very little time to assess whether any of the load bearing structures are damaged and what that might mean for the integrity of the building. Especially as there's at least maybe 50 pillars per floor - 50x8 = 400. Can you check 400 pillars in 120 minutes, let alone floors, ceilings, the roof, stairwells, lift shafts etc? Then you hear about people returning to work for a few days only to get evacuated again because there some damage which was missed in the initial inspection. Scary stuff.

Previous versions

1 version
ConanTroutman edited November 26, 2016 00:49
Oceanic6 wrote:

Doesn't seem like our journalists are asking serious questions as to why these newish buildings are not able to survive these earthquakes. Queensgate cinema, readings car park, state services.  Surely they will launch an enquiry.  Someone's head needs to roll. It's embarrassing.

The Statistics NZ one seems to be the only one that actually failed though. The others all stood up to the quakes and anyone inside would have survived(or at least, the building wouldn't have killed them - furniture might have). The problem is that people seem to have been rushed back into buildings after a very superficial inspection. Building codes are set up so that the building stays standing in a shake and people can get out - not so that the building is safe to occupy afterwards in aftershocks or future quakes. 

My work is a 1940s building, 8 storeys high, and they inspected the whole thing in 2 hours. There's massive cracks in the plaster and in some places you can see the crack extends deep into concrete behind the plaster. I'm not a structural engineer but two hours seems like very little time to assess whether any of the load bearing structures are damaged and what that might mean for the integrity of the building. Especially as there's at least maybe 50 pillars per floor - 50x8 = 400. Can you check 400 pillars in 120 minutes, let alone floors, ceilings, the roof, etc? Then you hear about people returning to work for a few days only to get evacuated again because there some damage which was missed in the initial inspection. Scary stuff.