National Applied Research Laboratories (NARL) has developed an earthquake disaster prevention system that can issue early warnings and assess damage when an earthquake occurs, in addition to a pre-disaster mitigation program that helps reinforce vulnerable school buildings.
Following the Feb. 6 earthquake that killed 117 people and injured more than 500 in Tainan, the NARL yesterday unveiled a “trilogy of earthquake disaster reduction actions” as a combined effort of government units in a bid to reduce the effects of a disaster.
The three measures are: assessing and reinforcing seismic resistance before an earthquake, providing early warnings when an earthquake is detected and predicting damage from earthquakes at the time their magnitude is determined, National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering director Chang Kuo-Chun (張國鎮) said.
“There have been 15 large-scale earthquakes in Taiwan in the past 300 years, which combined have killed about 10,700 people, which means there is a catastrophic earthquake every 20 years,” Chang said.
“We have to find ways to reduce the scale of disaster before the next large earthquake strikes,” Chang said.
A national seismic resistance assessment of school buildings showed that 86 percent of public schools are safe, while the NARL has helped reinforce more than 4,000 school buildings, which are mostly in earthquake-prone Tainan and Chiayi County.
The assessment is also to be carried out on public buildings, including hospitals, malls and cinemas.
The NARL collectes geological and seismological data and building design plans to predict what structures would be destroyed or damaged in an earthquake of a given magnitude, with the results able to be delivered within two minutes after a temblor occurs.
However, the analysis has its shortcomings, as it failed to predict the collapse of the Weiguan Jinlong complex in Tainan during the earthquake last month, which killed 115 residents, while the system estimated that only six people would die.
“According to construction regulations when the complex was built, the buildings should have been able to withstand earthquakes more powerful than the Feb. 6 temblor if it had been properly designed and constructed,” Chang said.
“Our system cannot detect disasters caused by faulty design and construction,” he said.
“The government must look into jerry-built construction and residential buildings refurbished for commercial purposes where load-bearing structures are removed,” Chang said.
The system could provide a few seconds to tens of seconds warning before ground shaking during an earthquake, but the warning service is only available at 236 schools, which might be extended to private residences and businesses via security companies.
“Taiwan’s early-warning system has about the same accuracy as Japan’s system, but their purposes are different,” Chang said.
“Japan is mostly hit by earthquakes out at sea. Because they generally occur at a distance from the mainland, it gives people more time to react,” he said. “However, Taiwan is mostly hit by earthquakes happening on Taiwan proper, meaning there is basically no time to respond.”
“Our system is developed to prevent a second wave of disaster instead of initiating an immediate response,” he said.
A post-earthquake disaster analysis could predict locations that might be severely damaged to ensure that those places would not be isolated and unassisted if communications were to be cut, as was the case with the 921 Earthquake in Nantou County in 1999, Chang said.
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