Friday, February 26, 2010
By Stella Chia (06),
1 Unity
A major earthquake that struck Greece has left many people dead and countless homeless. On Tuesday, 7 September 1999, it was the strongest earthquake to have struck Athens, Greece in nearly a century.
The 5.9 magnitude earthquake caused more than 100 buildings to collapse(including three major factories), 143 deaths were reported while more than 2000 were treated for injuries. This event took Greek seismologists by surprise as it came from a previously unknown fault, originating in an area that was for a long time considered of a particularly low seismicity. The coordinates of the earthquake were 38.09N, 23.63E.
The Anatolian plate and Africa, Eurasia plates slides past each other, causing the earthquake.
Figure 1.2 shows the immense damage of a collapse of a 3-storey RC building with pilotis, in Ano LiosiaIn response to the event, the government sent out search teams to search and rescue trapped people. First aid and medical care were given to victims. Distribution of drinkable water, food and other items of immediate need were issued to the victims too.
To minimize such damage from such a devastating event, I feel that the architectures, who design and build such buildings, should learn what types of buildings are resistant to earthquakes. They should not built staircases without shear wall cores(reinforcements), adjacent buildings with unequal height, and unauthorized removal of infill walls (or even columns)that support buildings to increase usable area of space.
(The Picture on the left shows the failure of column, due to short column effect, of a 5-storey building in Ano Liosia, which was built in 1997 according to the new Greek Seismic Code)Also, i feel that the people of Athens should stay calm in sch a crisis. Also, to prevent damaging injuries while inside a building,people should avoid standing in a doorway, and they should crouch under a desk or table, away from windows or glass dividers which might shatter and injure them. Also, while those are outside,they should stand away from buildings, trees, telephone and electric lines as these items might topple and crash on them causing immediate death and more casualties for the paramedics to handle. People on the road should drive away from underpasses/overpasses; stop in safe area and stay in their vehicles as this will protect them from unsuspecting falling objects caused by the earthquakes.
Bibliography:Website:Institute of Engineering Seismology and Earthquake Engineering (ITSAK), http://mceer.buffalo.edu/research/Reconnaissance/greece9-7-99/,
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Website:P. DIMITRIU, C. KARAKOSTAS AND V. LEKIDIS, http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/RMS/july2000/Papers/dimitriu2807.pdf,
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Website:Mr George Pararas-Carayannis, http://www.drgeorgepc.com/Earthquake1999Greece.html,
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Website:Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Athens_earthquake,
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Website:American Red Cross, http://www.asiaing.com/27-things-to-help-you-survive-an-earthquake.html,
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Google,http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mceer.buffalo.edu/gif/recon/greece090799/photo5.gif&imgrefurl=http://mceer.buffalo.edu/research/Reconnaissance/greece9-7-99/fig_5.asp&usg=__66ak1g7LUmlryL0J1IKmRQVvk90=&h=370&w=549&sz=111&hl=en&start=3&itbs=1&tbnid=NY9KLomHA1H0dM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgreece%2Bearthquake%2B1999%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1,
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Environmentalist Blogged:9:17 PM
