Scientists blame 921 damage on lax standards

Scientists from the National Science Council (NSC) said yesterday that serious damage to buildings caused by the 921 earthquake can be attributed to insufficient earthquake standards in construction and an inadequate quality control process.

"Based on the preliminary study, we found that serious damage to buildings resulted from an unavoidable natural disaster (?悃a) and preventable human error (?H?)," said Tsai Keh-chyuan (1/22克銓), a member of the investigative team that looked at damaged buildings in disaster areas.

The team, which comprised more than 500 professors and students from 12 universities, and officials from the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) and the Architecture and Building Research Institute (建築研究所), inspected 8,278 buildings damaged by the 921 quake.

Researchers discovered that 60 percent of the damaged buildings were built before 1982, when quake-resistant conditions were first incorporated into existing building codes.

Scientists said that most damaged buildings were built near the Chelungpu fault (車龍埔斷層), where the epicenter was located.

Those in Puli Township (埔里), Nantou County, and Yuanlin Township (-?L), Taichung County suffered most due to the intensity of the quake in those areas.

However, researchers said a building's quake-resistant ability was weakened by human error.

Tsai, a civil engineering professor from National Taiwan University, said that fatal mistakes included adding extensions onto the top of buildings (3遞茈[蓋), evacuating space for the entrance of parking lots in the basement and building unstable pedestrian corridors (騎樓). These all could be attributed to the poor quake-resistant performance of buildings, Tsai said.

"The interior structure of collapsed buildings had been changed before the earthquake by interior designers, for the sake of feng shui or other reasons," he said. "Some of them took dividing walls apart arbitrarily without considering how the building's quake-resistant ability would be weakened. We have to take this seriously because it's commonly seen, not only in disaster areas."

Scientists pointed out yesterday that problems caused by poor quality control reviews had emerged.

"When observing damaged buildings in disaster areas, we saw a number of wrong arrangements for main bars (主筋), ties (箍筋) and hooks (彎1_), which should have been pointed out during quality control review when they were completed," Tsai said.

"We are not saying that buildings with pedestrian corridors or other styles of buildings should be banned. However, we would like to suggest adopting stricter building codes and a comprehensive quality control review," said Loh Chin-hsiung (?俊雄), the director of NCREE.

"As for buildings damaged slightly during the 921 quake, we are producing a pamphlet with instructions for people inspecting their buildings. [The pamphlet] will be completed at the beginning of next year," said Loh.

Scientists stressed yesterday that damaged school buildings built in long rows should be reviewed immediately for their vulnerability.