HR: 16:40h
AN: PA24A-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Urban Earthquakes - Reducing Building Collapse Through Education
AU: * Bilham, R
EM: bilham@colorado.edu
AF: Geological Sciences, CIRES University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0399 United States
AB: Fatalities from earthquakes rose from 6000k to 9000k/year in the past decade, yet the ratio of numbers of earthquake fatalities to instantaneous population continues to fall. Since 1950 the ratio declined worldwide by a factor of three, but in some countries the ratio has changed little. E.g in Iran, 1 in 3000 people can expect to die in an earthquake, a percentage that has not changed significantly since 1890. Fatalities from earthquakes remain high in those countries that have traditionally suffered from frequent large earthquakes (Turkey, Iran, Japan, and China), suggesting that the exposure time of recently increased urban populations in other countries may be too short to have interacted with earthquakes with long recurrence intervals. This in turn, suggests that disasters of unprecendented size will occur (more than 1 million fatalities) when future large earthquakes occur close to megacities. However, population growth is most rapid in cities of less than 1 million people in the developing nations, where the financial ability to implement earthquake resistant construction methods is limited. In that structural collapse can often be traced to ignorance about the forces at work in an earthquake, the future collapse of buildings presently under construction could be much reduced were contractors, builders and occupants educated in the principles of earthquake resistant assembly. Education of builders who are tempted to cut assembly costs is likely to be more cost effective than material aid.
DE: 7223 Seismic hazard assessment and prediction
DE: 1645 Solid Earth
SC: Public Affairs [PA]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting