[whiteperil] Sean: More questions about quake resistance

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Posted by Sean:
More questions about quake resistance
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1167292334.shtml


   There's been a lot going on here while I've been away from the blog,
   but some highlights will be especially cheering over the New Year
   holiday.
   One is that, predictably, increased vigilance spurred by the Hidetsugu
   Aneha scandal (he was given a five-year sentence this week) has
   brought some [1]unpleasant unpleasant things to the surface:

     About 7 percent of new medium-rise apartment complexes are believed
     to fall below the mandatory quake-resistance strength standard, an
     infrastructure ministry report showed. Fifteen of 221 buildings
     checked had a quake-resistance level of less than 0.9 against the
     benchmark of 1 set under the Building Standards Law, the report
     released Wednesday showed.
     ...
     One of the buildings in question may have a quake-resistance level
     of only 0.5 or even lower, which means the structure will have to
     be rebuilt, the report said. Buildings with less than 0.5
     quake-resistance strength could collapse in a moderately strong
     earthquake, while buildings with strengths ranging from 0.5 to 1
     can be reinforced to meet the standard, the ministry said.
     ...
     Officials said no clear falsifications of structural reports on
     quake-resistance have been confirmed in the survey. But the
     findings raised the possibility that many new medium-rise apartment
     buildings across the nation do not meet the quake-resistance
     strength standard.
     ...
     There are about 7,000 10-story or so condominium buildings that
     received approval for construction from 2001 through 2005. The
     ministry randomly picked 389 of them for the survey.

   One comfort here is that it didn't take the actual collapse of a
   building to bring on greater scrutiny. (South Korea learned to take a
   harder line on building code enforcement after the showy Sampoong
   Department Store in Seoul [2]pancaked, killing five hundred people;
   subsequent investigations revealed slipshod construction in many other
   buildings.) One non-comfort is that not even serious scandals such as
   this one are always sufficient to cause needed change in Japan.

References

   1. http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200612280231.html
   2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampoong_Department_Store_collapse