How+Japan+has+prepared+for+earthquakes

=[|New Earthquake-Resistant Design Pulls Buildings Upright After Violent Quakes]= By [|Clay Dillow] Posted 09.02.2009 at 4:45 pm [|4 Comments]

Keeping Buildings Upright During Quakes A new structural system dissipates energy to replaceable fuses and pulls buildings back upright after violent earthquakes. Xiang Ma, Stanford University How exactly does one build an earthquake-proof building? If you answered "make sure the structure rocks completely off its foundation," you're actually in good company. A research team led by Stanford and the University of Illinois successfully tested a structural system that holds a building together through a magnitude-seven earthquake, and even pulls it back upright on its foundation when the quaking stops. The key: embracing the shaking, by limiting the damage to a few flexible, replaceable areas within the building's frame. When a quake strikes, the new system dissipates energy through steel frames in the building's core and exterior. These frames are free to rock up and down within fittings fixed at their bases. Steel tendons made from twisted steel cables run the length of each frame, keeping the frames from moving so much that the building could shear. When the quake stops, these tensile tendons pull the frames back down into the "shoes" at their bases, returning the building to its plumb, upright position. http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/new-earthquake-resistant-design-keeps-buildings-standing-during-violent-quakes

By //[|Associated Press] // / March 11, 2011 NEW YORK U.S. stocks look poised to fall Friday as investors try to gauge the economic fallout from the largest earthquake in Japan's history. [|Skip to next paragraph]

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  The earthquake shook northeastern Japan toward the end of the Asian trading session. Tsunami alerts were issued for areas as far away as the mainland U.S. West coast. The quake caused a selloff in global stock markets, led by sharp drops in insurance companies. Japan's Nikkei closed down 1.7 percent. The yen remained stable, however, because it is seen as a relatively safe investment for international traders. The prospect of a short-term drop in demand for crude from Japan, the world's third-largest oil consumer, sent oil prices below $100 for the first time this month. Crude fell $3.24 to $99.46 a barrel.
 * [|Japan tsunami causes major damage after 8.9 earthquake]
 * [|How Japan learns from its earthquakes and tsunamis]

 IN PICTURES: Japan's 8.9 earthquake Stock futures briefly recovered some of their losses ahead of the start of trading after the Commerce Department reported that retail sales rose 1 percent in February, their biggest sales gain in four months. Shoppers laid out more cash for cars, clothing and gadgets in February, leading to an eighth month of retail sales gains. Analysts had only expected a gain of 0.8 percent. But stock futures soon gave back their gains. Ahead of the bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 44 points, or 0.4 percent, to 11,876. S&P 500 futures fell 2.9, or 0.2 percent, to 1,286. Nasdaq 100 futures are fell 6.5, or 0.3 percent, to 2,274. Stocks fell sharply Thursday on weak economic news from China, the U.S. and Spain combined with a slump in oil company shares

By //[|Gavin Blair] //, Correspondent / March 11, 2011 Tokyo As night fell on Japan hours after one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, officials turned on the lights to assess the damage and search for survivors in the worst hit areas along the eastern coast. <span style="color: #205d87; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; height: 1px; left: -5000px; margin: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding: 0px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: 0px; width: 1px;">[|Skip to next paragraph]

<span style="display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 250px;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: #f2f7f4; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; border: 2px solid #eaf2ee; display: block; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px; padding: 10px;"> > ===<span style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px;">Related Stories ===
 * <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial; line-height: 1.3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="color: #205d87; display: block; float: left; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">[[image:http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/csm-photo-galleries-images/in-pictures-images/japan_earthquake-2011/2-add/9741340-1-eng-US/2-add_thumbnail_90.jpg width="90" height="60" link="http://www.csmonitor.com/CSM-Photo-Galleries/In-Pictures/Japan-s-9.0-earthquake"]] Gallery: <span style="color: #205d87; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">[|Japan's 9.0 earthquake]

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: #f2f7f4; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; border: 2px solid #eaf2ee; display: block; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px; padding: 10px;">  Yet even light was on short supply, with nuclear power plants shutting down after fires broke out at some of the facilities and raised concerns of potential radiation leaks. Millions of buildings around Tokyo were reported without power. The 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck northeast Japan at 2:45 p.m. local time, collapsing buildings 240 miles away in Tokyo, triggering a 30-foot tsunami that swept away everything in its path, and killing at least 300 people already. Hundreds more remain missing, including 100 crew on a lost fishing boat. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; display: block; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; display: block; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="clear: both; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; margin-left: 0px;">
 * <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; color: #205d87; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">[|Japan tsunami causes major damage after 8.9 earthquake]
 * <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; color: #205d87; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">[|Japan earthquake Thursday follows Wednesday's 7.3 magnitude quake]
 * <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; color: #205d87; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.3; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">[|China earthquake kills 24 and destroys over 1,000 buildings]

<span style="color: #000000; font-size: 2.2em; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">**How to Rebuild Japan**
<span style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 1.5em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px;">//What will coastal cities around the world learn from what happened?//

<span style="clear: both; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 13px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; text-transform: uppercase;"> EDUARDO KAUSEL 03/22/2011 <span style="clear: both; color: #333333; display: block; float: left; font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: inherit; line-height: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: visible; overflow-y: visible; text-transform: uppercase;"> <span style="clear: both; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; width: 1px;"> <span style="clear: both; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> Eduardo Kausel is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT. As anyone who has seen the astonishing video footage of Tokyo skyscrapers swaying from side to side can attest, Japan is at the very forefront of the science of earthquake-proofing buildings. But given that most of the damage and destruction was done by the subsequent tsunami, not the earthquake, Japan is now faced with some important decisions. Unlike Haiti, where thousands of people lost their lives in an earthquake early last year, Japan is a wealthy, sophisticated, and, perhaps most importantly, supremely well-organized modern nation. Rebuilding the towns and villages that have been damaged will be a tremendous exercise, the cost of which may well run into trillions of yen, but it is exactly the sort of civil engineering challenge that the Japanese will rise to. They will honor their dead and dust themselves off, and then the engineers will be sent in. Order will be brought to chaos, and I suspect it will be done quickly. In the short term, damage assessment is likely to focus on two very different areas. First, structural engineers will be sent into modern earthquake-proofed buildings to examine the impact of the quake on the quake-proofing technology. Just because a building is still standing doesn't mean it hasn't been damaged. While certain elements of quake-proofing (such as diagonal bracing) are designed to help the building move with the shifting ground, others (such as viscous dampers and shock absorbers) are designed to dissipate the earthquake's energy. Damaged components will have to be replaced or, where the associated cost is too high, the building will need to be demolished. But that's not a failure for quake-proofing. It's a success: the building withstood the quake. For decades, that's been the primary aim of quake-proofing—preserving human life and avoiding extensive damage during moderate but oft-recurring earthquakes, not constructing buildings that can survive unscathed even after a monster earthquake like this one. The second area of damage assessment will be on the devastation wrought by the tsunami. Traditional, low-lying Japanese houses and buildings are mostly of low cost and quick to build, as befits a country that has lived with the threat of earthquakes for centuries. So theoretically it's quite possible that many of the worst-hit areas could be rebuilt quickly. But before they are, the huge loss of life has to be taken into consideration. This, after all, is the second devastating tsunami to hit the Far East in just over six years. Isn't it time some lessons were learned? Shouldn't schools and hospitals, for instance, now be rebuilt on higher ground? Shouldn't entire coastal settlements be relocated further inland? These are the sort of questions the country's civil engineers and infrastructure planners will be asking themselves as the rebuilding process gets underway. With earthquakes such a fact of life in Japan, and the relatively shallow seas of northeastern Japan making the area particularly vulnerable to a tsunami, I hope the Japanese authorities act responsibly, and if necessary, relocate and redesign entire towns and villages, as well as future nuclear power stations. We know now that you can't tsunami-proof a town or building; all you can do is move it out of the way. But I wouldn't bet on the authorities taking the right action. Time and again, all over the world, settlements that have been destroyed by a natural disaster are simply rebuilt in exactly the same place. That's what happened in the Thai beach resorts devastated by the 2004 tsunami, and it's also what happens on an almost routine basis in certain parts of the United States. Low-lying properties on the Gulf of Mexico and the Eastern Seaboard are destroyed by seasonal hurricanes and rebuilt over and over again, often with the help of financial incentives from the U.S. government. Whatever the choices made, it will become a matter of national pride that this part of Japan is rebuilt, not necessarily bigger than before, but certainly better. New buildings of three, four, and five stories will have appropriate levels of quake-proofing technology incorporated in their design, as will new bridges, stations, and elevated roads. And around all this new infrastructure, traditional, timber-framed houses will rise from the muddy wastes. Slowly, life will return to something resembling normality. And, if the rebuilding is done almost exclusively by Japanese companies, this has the potential to fuel a domestic construction boom that could save the country from the economic doldrums it's been stuck in for over a quarter of a century. There are important lessons to be learned here, for other parts of Japan and for coastal cities located in active earthquakes zones around the world. I hope authorities on the other side of the Pacific, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle, will revise their own plans for "the big one" accordingly and include preparations for a tsunami. Because if Japan's devastating earthquake has taught us anything, it's this: it's not a matter of if it comes, butwhen. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; display: block; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: repeat-x; display: block; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="clear: both; color: #333333; display: block; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.8em; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"> = **EARTHQUAKE DRILLS** = = Earthquakes happen with no warning; therefore, life-protecting actions must be taken at the first indication of ground shaking. Even in the most severe earthquakes, buildings rarely collapse completely. Injury and even death are most often caused by the shattering and falling of non-structural elements, such as window glass, ceiling plaster, lighting fixtures, chimneys, roof tiles, and signs. There will be no time to think what to do; therefore, of all earthquake-preparedness measures, EARTHQUAKE DRILLS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT. = = Regular earthquake evacuation drills should occur separately from, but with the same frequency, as fire drills. Drills should regularly simulate emergencies such as jammed doors, and blocked hallways and stairways. = = **Drills** = = The following are recommended drill procedures for a teacher and class of students: • TAKE COVER under desks or tables • FACE AWAY from windows • ASSUME "CRASH" POSITION on knees, head down, hands clasped on back of neck or = = head covered with book or jacket • COUNT ALOUD to 60 -- earthquakes rarely last longer than 60 seconds and counting is = = calming. = = The teacher should: • issue the “take cover” order • also take cover for 60 seconds • review evacuation procedures. = = If the teacher is injured, two student monitors should have designated authority to give instructions. = = In other areas of the school, at the first sign of an earthquake, occupants should: • move away from windows, shelves and heavy objects that may fall • take cover under a table or desk, in a corner or doorway • in halls, stairways and other areas where no cover is available, move to an interior wall; kneel = = with back to wall; place head close to knees; clasp hands behind neck; and cover side of head = = with arms • in the library, move away from where books and bookshelves may fall and take cover • stay inside -- usually the most dangerous place is just outside where building debris may fall; exit = = only after shaking has stopped • in science laboratories, extinguish all burners, if possible, before taking cover; stay away from = = hazardous chemicals that may spill • in other areas, such as gymnasiums, auditoriums, music rooms, and industrial education shops, = = the district or school committee should prepare appropriate guidelines based on the above. =
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 * [[image:http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/guest/files/59950/japan_earthquaketsu_minamisoma_wave_march12_2011_dg.jpg width="582" height="357"]] The impact of the tsunami on Minamisoma shown on 12 March. Credit: Digital Globe. ||