More than failed tsunami warning systems, earthquake experts condemn a lack of public understanding of the risk as a fatal contributor to the more than 1,400 deaths in a 7.5-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Palu Bay in Sulawesi, Indonesia, on Sept. 29.
A new study of high-sensitivity gravimeter and seismometer data—recorded just before and during the magnitude-9.0 earthquake on March 11, 2011, in Tohoku-Oki, Japan—describes a promising new data collection and analysis methodology that could give authorities time to issue advance warnings and secure vulnerable systems before earthquakes strike.
With its ability to create shallow waves of great length in a laboratory flume, a new tsunami simulator in the U.K. is helping seismic engineers at University College’s EPICentre, London, compute more accurate structural impact models than previously were possible.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has proposed that a new chapter in its ASCE 7 Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures, which addresses tsunami-resistant design, also be explicitly referenced in the ICC’s 2018 International Building Code.
Mitsui Inc., one of Japan’s largest construction firms and also one of its major nuclear fuel traders, is investigating the feasibility of building biomass power generators to help dispose of debris from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as well as help recycle waste from the reconstruction effort.
