With the recent Nepal earthquake, our national government in the Philippines through PHIVOLCS just issued again the VFS(Valley Fault System) Map for information dissemination. This time it captured lots of Filipinos awareness and became a trending topic in social media. My wife who used to ignore my stories about the fault line (me being a structural engineer) immediately threatened me after hearing the news(weird lol).
Social media suddenly became a bulletin board full of prayers for the Philippines. I hope we begin to think realistically and do not just rely too much on Faith alone. This may not be the perfect suggestions, but here are my thoughts:
- Luckily, most high rise building in the metro are designed according to NSCP (the national structural code of the Philippines). Thus, no immediate worries of possible distraction when earthquake comes. However, some were not designed according to the latest Code which considers ductility of the frame.
- Although these buildings may withstand extreme earthquake, the other scenario which may result due to this earthquake is what matters most:
- Access to food, electricity and clean water will be hard because such magnitude of earthquake may divide roads and detroy electric posts and can even caused fires.
- Our municipality in valenzuela recently launched its 3S centers in times of disasters like this. Other cities especially those lying near the valley fault system should follow the same. Again, careful planning from the urban planners usually architect and in coordination with engineers should drive this endeavour.
- Now as individual family effort, we should at least have a week storage of food or other source of electricity in our house say a generator. Although you need to make effort storing diesel fuel for that. Basically, the way we prepared for typhoons is also the same with earthquake preparedness but for this case instead of rainfall as our enemy, it’s the destruction of our house debris falling down on us.
- Just my thought, I have been fond of correlating earthquake occurrence with the moon rotation. Most sites said that large earthquakes occurred during full moon window. We may observe that large storm also usually occurs after a large earthquake. In short, we cant help but wander that there are external forces linked to this events.
- Now, if you are afraid your house will be destroyed for such event, please consider consulting a structural engineer before you build house in order to ensure your house will sustain such devastating force from mother nature.
..I will think further on some preparation for this large event..
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