Earthquake Evacuation Buildings: 46% quake non-resistant

[Taro Toporific]

Only half of public school buildings deemed quake-resistant
TOKYO Aug. 4 Kyodo - Less than half of the buildings at Japan's public primary and junior high schools were earthquake-resistant as of April 1, education ministry officials said ...only 46.6% of the 131,482 school buildings and gymnasiums, which are often used to accommodate evacuees when disasters take place, are judged to be resistant to earthquakes.

[Captain Japan]

Only half of public school buildings deemed quake-resistant
TOKYO Aug. 4 Kyodo - Less than half of the buildings at Japan's public primary and junior high schools were earthquake-resistant as of April 1, education ministry officials said ...only 46.6% of the 131,482 school buildings and gymnasiums, which are often used to accommodate evacuees when disasters take place, are judged to be resistant to earthquakes.

I would hate to read what the figure is for apartment and office buildings constructed in the '60s and '70s.

[Steve Bildermann]

[ramchop]

Now you've got me all paranoid Steve. Oh well, I've only got 9 more months of being scared of the 4 floors of concrete bunker above me squashing me into the 4 floors of concrete below.... then it's back to the safety of Wellington (New Zealand).

[GomiGirl]

Steve, I also heard that there were a large number of suicides after the Kobe quake.

People who had lost their families and/or homes. Insurance was not going to pay for the house but they were still lumbered with a mortgage for a non-existance house.

[Captain Japan]

I learned there and then that Japan has *no* preparedness for earthquakes. Our local neighborhood watch committee agrees with me and we have made our own plans. If you intend on living anywhere in Japan I suggest you do to.

This is compounded by the shotty construction industry. I remember reading accounts of a lot of the damage - almost entirely blamed on inferior methods and materials and getting hauled off to the dump really quickly so as to avoid any inspection.

And those same "building practices" are nationwide. I'm on the 10th floor of a building that is probably about 20 years old. I think about this a lot.

[gomichild]

My apartment is barely truck proof let alone earthquake proof. (It shakes when big trucks go down Ome-Kaido). Thankfully it only has two floors.

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

Aparently if the building shakes it is good. Just Monday there was a 4.9 earthquake and my building shook like a leaf you could feel the steel reverberate even after the quake had stopped.

[Behan]

Japan leads the way with quake-resistant technology
Lessons from deadly '95 earthquake could save lives worldwide

By HIROKO NAKATA
Staff writer
When a massive earthquake hit the western part of Japan more than a decade ago, a highway collapsed, railroads and telephone lines were partially cut, and many buildings were toppled...

The earthquake changed people's minds in Japan, and Italy, which has highly advanced quake-resistant technologies, should do more to disseminate these technologies, said Nagahide Kani, executive director of the Japan Society of Seismic Isolation, an industry group engaged in developing quake-resistant technology. ..

"Italy's seismic-isolation technologies are very advanced, but they are not wide spread," Kani said.

In Japan, thanks to the huge earthquake in 1995, quake-resistant technologies grabbed the spotlight and more Japanese buildings introduced the seismic-isolation system, or base-isolation system, as it protects a structure by installing components between a building and its foundation, decoupling it from the shaking ground.

Figures prove how Japan moved to cope with possible massive earthquakes.

In 1982, there was only one building that employed the system — a two-story housing unit in the city of Yachiyo, Chiba Prefecture, west of Tokyo. The number gradually rose to 80 buildings by 1994, but after the 1995 earthquake, the figure soared to 2,200 buildings in 2009.

Quake-resistant systems for housing are also widely used in Japan. Some 5,000 Japanese houses have introduced vibration-isolation technologies, Kani said...

...Despite the development of the technologies, Japan needs to work hard to cope with possible earthquakes.

The education ministry warned June 16 that more than 7,300 school buildings are at high risk of collapse in the event of a powerful earthquake. A survey by the ministry on the nation's 124,976 public schools also found that the quake resistance of 41,206 buildings is insufficient. The ministry said 7,309 could crumble if hit by a quake measuring an Upper 6 on the Japanese seismic scale of 7.

But for the majority of houses and buildings have things really gotten that much better? I suspect the majority of houses are still made in the old zairai koho style, which have bigger but fewer wooden beams compared to the '2x4' style, and are more likely to twist and collapse in an earthquake.

Plus, due to architects like Aneha, there are a lot of buildings which are substandard.

And in megalopoli (?) like Tokyo, you're f*cked if a big one hits because it will take hours or days before any help arrives.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090708b4.html