Articles Tagged with ''earthquake''

Crews are at work demolishing structure deemed to be at risk of collapse and engineers are assessing other compromised buildings nearby, including a car park and cinema complex.

Structural engineer Cary Kopczynski once penned a prediction: “There may come a day in the not-too-distant future when concrete building structures will commonly be reinforced with a combination of steel fibers and steel reinforcing bar.

Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi launched a long-term program to reinforce millions of aging buildings against earthquakes following the Aug. 24 shocks, measuring magnitude-6.2, that caused nearly 300 deaths as of Aug. 30 in an area northeast of Rome.

Since Los Angeles joined San Francisco Bay Area cities last October in tightening seismic standards for non-ductile concrete buildings and multi-family, wood-frame structures with parking underneath (ENR 11/9/15 p. 16), seismic retrofit work in those cities has been booming.

In the next 30 years, California has a 99.7% chance of a magnitude-6.7 or higher earthquake, and the Pacific Northwest has a 10% chance of a magnitude-8 to -9 mega-thrust Cascadia subduction-zone quake, says the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Taiwanese authorities arrested the developer of a 17-story apartment tower that collapsed, a government official said, as the search for survivors continues.