Take Japan's Sendai earthquake on March 11, which released 600 million times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb. The ensuing partial meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant prompted international hysteria about nuclear power, but few seemed to realize that a far deadlier threat had been averted - houses in seismically active zones are the world's unrecognized weapons of mass destruction — and Japan's WMD didn't go off. Its buildings remained standing, and the people inside survived - at least those that weren't swept away by the accompanying tsunami, a force of nature against which we are still largely helpless. That so few buildings collapsed in the earthquake was a human triumph of the first order. But cities around the world seem happy to ignore the earthquake threat — one that is only growing as the cities themselves get bigger and bigger.
The Japan quake was not the catastrophe it could have been because the country learned from experience. In the wake of the 1995 Kobe quake, in which 200,000 buildings collapsed, Japanese engineers took extensive measures to reinforce buildings and infrastructure. They installed rubber blocks under bridges. They spaced buildings farther apart to prevent domino-style tumbling. They introduced extra bracing, base isolation pads, hydraulic shock absorbers. A minute before the March earthquake, seismic monitoring systems sent warnings to Japanese cellphones. Elevators glided obediently to the nearest floor and opened. Surgeries were halted. Videos from Tokyo show skyscrapers swaying gracefully, like cornstalks in the wind. Not one collapsed.
But many of the world's biggest cities are at massive seismic risk, built more like Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which was devastated by an earthquake in 2010. Eight of the world's 10 biggest cities are built on fault lines, and they are growing larger every day, as is the trend of housing migrant populations in death traps. As a result, it's likely that before long we'll see a headline announcing, "One Millon Dead in Massive Earthquake."
We know how to construct buildings that don't collapse. We also know which cities are most at risk: Bogota, Cairo, Caracas, Dhaka, Islamabad, Istanbul, Jakarta, Karachi, Katmandu, Lima, Manila, Mexico City, New Delhi, Quito and Tehran. Los Angeles and Tokyo are prime candidates for a major quake, but they will probably survive because they are well-built - though Los Angeles could do better.
On Feb. 27, 2010, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck near the city of Concepcion, Chile. Though the epicenter was not at the heart of the city, this quake was 100 times bigger than the one that leveled Port-au-Prince. It was so massive that it shortened the length of the day by 1.26 microseconds and moved the Earth on its axis by eight centimeters. When it was over, the entire city of Concepcion had been moved three yards to the west.
The death toll from this monster was 521. Each death was its own disaster, of course, but the number was nevertheless astoundingly small for an earthquake that, by all rights, should have destroyed Chile as a whole. Chile did so well because it has some of the strictest and most advanced building codes in the world, and because the codes do not merely exist on paper — they are enforced.
Now consider Turkey. Like Chile, Turkey is no stranger to earthquakes. In 1509, an earthquake killed between 5% and 10% of Constantinople's population. Since then, the city has suffered serious quake damage 11 times, most recently at the end of the 19th century. There is not a geologist alive who doubts that a major earthquake is likely to hit Istanbul soon. In 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey put the odds of it happening within 30 years at 62%. It is estimated that it will kill 200,000 to 300,000 people. The cost of the cleanup — $50 billion would be an optimistic estimate — will surely set Turkey's economy back decades. It will be a political cataclysm, with massive ramifications for the entire region. Many buildings in Istanbul are clearly unsound. There are ground floors, for example, with walls or columns removed to make way for store displays, violating one of the most important principles of earthquake-resistant construction. There are vast neighborhoods filled with illegal, flimsy structures. They tend to be built on bad soil. They are packed with children. Even buildings approved by engineers are largely not built to code, including the city's hospitals, of which 86% are at high risk of collapse.
than plagues or earthquakes.**
Voltaire
LARGEST QUAKES -
This morning -
5.3 TONGA
5.1 NEW IRELAND REGION, P.N.G.
6.3 NEW IRELAND REGION, P.N.G.
Yesterday -
7/24/11 -
5.1 JAVA, INDONESIA
6.2 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.1 NEAR EAST COAST OF HONSHU, JAPAN
5.0 MONGOLIA-CHINA BORDER REGION
5.0 PAKISTAN
5.0 OFFSHORE TARAPACA, CHILE
VOLCANOES -
INDONESIA - About 5000 Indonesians who fled the eruption of Mount Lokon have returned to their villages as the volcano quieted down.
Volcanic ash, soot helped slow recent warming. Tiny solid and liquid particles in the atmosphere, including volcanic ash and soot from fossil fuel burning, have kept the Earth from warming as fast as it otherwise would have in the past dozen years, according to a new study.
TROPICAL STORMS -
-Post-Tropical Cyclone DORA HAS DEGENERATED INTO A REMNANT LOW IN THE PACIFIC.
-TROPICAL DEPRESSION 10W was LOCATED APPROXIMATELY 400 NM EAST-SOUTHEAST OF MANILA, PHILIPPINES.
-TROPICAL DISTURBANCE 94W (SE OF GUAM) - THE POTENTIAL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SIGNIFICANT TROPICAL CYCLONE WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS IS HIGH.
PHILIPPINES - The tropical depression off Eastern Visayas may become a cyclone in 24 hours. Flash floods and landslides threaten parts of Southern Luzon and the Visayas as the system threatens to become a cyclone within the next day, state weather forecasters said Monday. The tropical depression has been codenamed "Juaning".
Tropical depression Ten is forecast to strike the Philippines as a tropical storm at about 00:00 GMT on 27 July.
SEVERE RAIN STORMS, FLOODING, LANDSLIDES -
ILLINOIS - RECORD RAINFALL drenches Chicago. Flights are canceled, power is knocked out and roads are flooded as the city deals with THE LARGEST SINGLE-DAY RAINFALL SINCE RECORDS BEGAN in 1871. As a heat wave continued to sear much of the East with 100-plus temperatures Saturday, Chicago was pounded with record-breaking rainfall. At O'Hare International Airport, rainfall totals had reached 6.91 inches Saturday morning. The highest previous daily total was 6.64 inches on Sept. 12, 2008. Commuters soldiered on their way, trying to deal with the effects of overnight storms. Two truckers had to be rescued by boat after abandoning their nearly submerged trucks on a South Side expressway. Roads into the airport were backed up, and the rain caused numerous flight delays of up to one hour and dozens of cancellations. The storm knocked out power for more than 150,000 customers. As of noon Saturday, about 74,000 were without power.
BANGLADESH - At least four people were killed and more than 200,000 stranded after three days of heavy rains triggered flash floods and landslides in southeastern Bangladesh. The government's flood forecasting and warning centre said more than 49 centimetres (19 inches) of rain had pounded the worst-hit Cox's Bazaar district since Wednesday, flooding at least 200 villages in the hilly region. "One child was buried under mud due to landslide and three more people were washed away in the huge torrents of water." Two more people were missing and more than 200,000 have been marooned by the floods, forcing 3,200 families to take shelter in schools, cyclone shelters and on high ground. Southeastern Bangladesh is prone to deadly flash floods as tens of thousands of people live in makeshift houses on deforested, muddy slopes along the hills. Earlier this month, at least 17 people died in adjoining Chittagong district from a rain-triggered landslide. At least 53 people were killed in June last year when heavy rains caused landslides and flash floods in large swathes of Cox's Bazaar district, home to the world's largest unbroken beach.
Freak weather forces waterfall to flow UPWARDS in extreme 75mph winds - Extreme weather has been battering Australia this week. The strong winds, which are seriously affecting the waterways of southern Australia, have gone up to 75mph. Earlier this week, Sydney saw A MONTH'S WORTH OF RAIN IN JUST ONE DAY. Although the ferries which hundreds of commuters rely on have kept running, they have provided rocky rides for those brave enough to keep travelling on them. Waves have reached 5m off the area's coast.
These winds are part of a pattern of UNUSUAL weather throughout the Australian winter. 25 people died in floods which have raged throughout the winter. The winds are just the latest in a long-running bout of extreme weather. A climate change researcher at Oxfam said: 'The Earth is delivering a message to us. And the message is that more extreme weather is becoming the norm rather than the exception.' (video)
