japans+praparness

By Dave Canfield The Record

[|Click to enlarge] TROY — Japan is among the most-prepared nation in the world for earthquakes, according to a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute engineer who has made a career studying the effects of quakes on buildings.

The western U.S. is also prepared, building its structures with the potential of a shaking earth in mind, said Michael Symans, professor of civil and environmental engineering. But the East Coast is a different scenario.

A devastating earthquake in the Northeast is unlikely, but not impossible, he said. Symans called it a “low-probability, high-risk” event that has entered engineers’ minds only recently.

“It’s only recently that in some of the eastern U.S. there’s been more explicit consideration of designing structures to withstand earthquakes,” he said. “Most of the structures in the eastern U.S. were not designed to withstand earthquakes. If they were subjected to large magnitudes, like what happened in Japan, it’d be extremely devastating.”  

Strong quakes that hit the Northeast in the 1800s, while nowhere near the strength of the recent one in Japan, could wreak havoc on today’s cities, he said. But the relative unlikelihood makes the investment a difficult one, he said.

Sayaka Masuko, a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute doctoral student, said tremors weren’t unusual when she went to college at Keio University in Tokyo from 2003 to 2007. Many people keep stashes of water bottles and pre-packaged meals in case of an emergency, she said, and she hopes that her parents, who live in Yokohama, did the same.

Despite the nation’s preparedness, the 8.9-magnitude quake left at least hundreds dead, according to media reports. Damage may have been lessened because the epicenter was below the ocean and not on land, Symans said.

By comparison, a 1995 on-land quake in Kobe, Japan killed thousands but registered only a 7.2, he said, despite being about 100 times less intense in terms of energy.

But while buildings can be built to withstand shaking earth, protecting them against a tsunami caused by a quake is another matter, he said. A wall of water caused by the underwater earthquake pushed ashore in northern Japan, indiscriminately consuming highways, buildings, ships and farmland