A coalition of environmental groups yesterday called on the Tainan City Government to ban buildings more than two stories high near active fault lines after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake that leveled or damaged several buildings in Tainan on Feb. 6.
The coalition asked the city government to limit construction in the vicinity of active faults to follow a precedent set by Nantou County after the 921 Earthquake in 1999.
Nantou County Government in 2000 prohibited buildings from being constructed at public properties and buildings more than two stories or 7m high from being built on private properties within 15m of the Chelungpu Fault (車籠埔斷層), which stretches along the county and Taichung and whose displacement caused the quake on Sept. 21, 1999.
Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Taipei Times
Properties located on fault zones must be marked as such on ownership certificates to prevent damage to potential buyers, according to Nantou regulations.
“We called on [Tainan Mayor] William Lai (賴清德) to follow suit and restrict construction in risky areas, especially the city’s Sinhua Fault (新化斷層) and Houjia Fault (後甲斷層), in addition to making public a soil liquefaction hazard map and examining the safety of existing buildings,” Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union director Charles Lee (李建畿) said.
Dislocation of the Sinhua Fault and Houjia Fault might have contributed to the Feb. 6 earthquake, according to an analysis by Taiwan Earthquake Research Center Director Ma Kuo-fong (馬國鳳).
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred along the Sinhua Fault in 1946, which killed 58 people and destroyed 633 buildings, Lee said.
The southwest has the highest frequency of earthquakes in the nation, and has an about 64 percent of chance of being hit by a magnitude 6.5 or higher earthquake in the next 30 years, according to a risk analysis by the center, Lee added.
Fight for Health Women’s Group southern division director Chiu Chun-hua (邱春華) said the building she lived in at Tainan’s East District (東區) was damaged by the Feb. 6 earthquake, and was later designated as a dangerous building in need of reinforcement, with residents told to evacuate.
“Many buildings in the city were constructed before the 921 Earthquake and only designed to resist magnitude 5 quakes, so they might not be able to stand another strong earthquake,” Chiu said, calling on the government to set up earthquake-resistant construction regulations and tighten construction management before another earthquake occurs.
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