Pursuit of Happyness

TECHNOLOGY FOR A SAVER WORLD PUT INTO ACTION

taken from: http://www.csiberkeley.com/article_indo.html   CSI Software Used for Earthquake Resistant Housing in Developing Countries.  

How technology can impact the lives of ordinary people in rural areas of underdeveloped countries can be extraordinary. Application of software donated by CSI is having that kind of an impact ~ enhancing seismic safety in developing countries such as Indonesia.

A house is meant for safe human habitation, a structure with a special purpose for people to have shelter from the elements and a sense of protection and comfort. But living in a dwelling that could be potentially dangerous due to its location in an earthquake zone is an unsettling proposition.         Every year earthquakes occur in various areas of Indonesia. Teddy Boen, a prominent Indonesian Structural Engineer and the Director of the World Seismic Safety Initiative, has spent over 30 years working on the subject of low-income housing projects termed as “non-engineered” construction in developing countries. Mr. Boen has tried to introduce “the engineering of non-engineered buildings” and has carefully studied the performance of such structures in past earthquakes to help develop guidelines for the earthquake resistant design of under privileged people’s housing.Mr. Boen has used CSI software, SAP 2000 and ETABS in his research and analysis to correlate his field observations with the results from the simulations produced by the 3D mathematical models of the software. Results of his work were published in his paper entitled “Earthquake Resistant Design of Non-Engineered Buildings in Indonesia”.         Approximately 70 percent of buildings inventory in Indonesia consists of urban and rural non-engineered buildings. These buildings are built according to tradition, their types suiting the culture and materials available in that area. Many of these structures are masonry buildings and were built with poor workmanship and poor quality of materials. Unfortunately, all catastrophes in developing countries such as Indonesia are mostly due to the collapse of such type of non-engineered buildings during an earthquake.The study of earthquake damage as well as field inspection provides new lessons to be learned for engineers in designing structures that will withstand earthquakes. The availability of software such as SAP2000 makes it practical for engineers to perform static and dynamic analysis of structures quickly and efficiently. These buildings can be re-engineered by verification using the powerful technology available in SAP2000 and ETABS.  

By observing the damage of structures in a real earthquake and then being able to simulate such damage using modern numerical methods along with powerful computer technology and graphics allows engineers to identify weaknesses in the structural behavior using a mathematical model during the design phase. These weaknesses can then be addressed before the structure is built. Now that is a story about technology for a safer world!

CHENGDU, China — Can earthquakes be predicted, their destructive impact forewarned?

Most scientists would say no. But if some insistent Chinese bloggers are to be believed, nature provided enough warning to have saved many of those who perished Monday.

In the days before the deadly earthquake shook much of mountainous Sichuan Province, their stories go, ponds inexplicably drained, cows flung themselves against their enclosures and swarms of toads invaded the streets of a town that was later decimated by the quake. “Why did the government ignore the signs?” asked a writer in one chat room. “Did they not care?”

Some bloggers have lobbed more pointed accusations, saying that alerts by a local seismology bureau were brushed off by provincial officials. The claim has been largely debunked, but that has not stopped the spread of rumors and tall tales, some of which are proving nettlesome to the ruling Communist Party as it grapples with China’s most calamitous disaster in a generation.

At a government news conference on Tuesday, carried live on state television, a reporter asked about the rumors. The broadcast quickly switched to stock film of rescue efforts. When it returned to the news conference, the questions had become benign.

Later that day, officials announced the arrest of four people for spreading quake-related rumors on the Web and said they would be punished, although they did not describe the punishment or nature of the rumors.

Lest any doubters remain, Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, ran an article on Wednesday featuring Zhang Xiaodong, a scientist at the China Earthquake Networks center, who said seismologists, contrary to popular belief, could not accurately predict natural disasters. “We haven’t passed the test of earthquake forecasting,” he said.

Here in China, the belief in omens and portents, often rooted in ancient cosmology, is widely held, even by the worldly and well educated. This is a culture, after all, that cherishes lucky numbers, eschews sounds that can be misconstrued as the word for death and places great value in feng shui, the practice of arranging furniture and buildings just so, to bring happiness and good health. Some of the traditions are newer than others: It is the rare taxi driver in China who does not keep an image of Chairman Mao dangling from the rear-view mirror as a talisman against danger.

Even the Communist Party, which ostensibly swept away the opiate of the masses with its 1949 revolution, decided to inflect the Beijing Olympics with as many lucky eights as possible: starting them on Aug. 8, or 8-08-2008, with a start time of 8:08 p.m.

While there is no way to know for sure, the current leadership may have one eye on Chinese history, which has long linked political power to the divine, a concept known as the mandate of heaven. Emperors served with the blessing of the heavens, according to such thinking, and those who turned corrupt or insensitive to the needs of the people were drummed out of power after a spate of natural catastrophes. Whether the calamities signaled the end of a government or helped embolden their usurpers is open to interpretation.

Most Chinese can provide an earful about the “curse of 1976,” the year of the deaths of Mao, Prime Minister Zhou Enlai and Gen. Zhu De, the head of the Red Army. It was also the year an earthquake struck the northeastern city of Tangshan, killing at least 240,000 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history.

Neil Schmid, a professor of Chinese religion at North Carolina State University who is a visiting scholar at Zhejiang University, said it was worth noting that the seismometer was invented by the Chinese in A.D. 132 as a way to detect tremors that might spell the end of a ruler’s reign. Successive dynasties employed a master of esoterica who would record and interpret floods, famines and other disasters.

“Reading and understanding these aberrations in the natural world has always been a central aspect of Chinese culture,” he said. “Cosmic order and state legitimacy were inextricably linked.”

For China, 2008, while thanks to its eight is ostensibly a lucky year, has already brought a spate of unfortunate events. It began with a huge winter storm that stalled the nation’s rail system, stranding millions before the Chinese New Year. Then came the rioting in Tibet. The crackdown that followed has prompted a torrent of protest and international ill will that has fouled what was meant to be a “harmonious” Olympics period. In recent weeks, the authorities in Beijing have been struggling with other calamities: an intestinal virus epidemic that started in central China and has killed 42 children, and a train collision that killed 72 passengers in eastern China.

Yiyan Wang, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Sydney in Australia, said that even if the Communist Party leadership did not subscribe to superstitions, it was aware that many citizens did. The voyage of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to the disaster zone hours after the quake could be interpreted as sound public relations or, perhaps, an acknowledgment of age-old fears. “The government knows many Chinese will see the quake as a sign that things are out of balance,” she said.

It is the story of the invading toads that seems to have gained the most traction, at least on the Internet. It did indeed occur, in some form, in Mianzhu two days before the quake, and many residents reacted with terror, believing it to be a harbinger of bad things. In an interview on Sichuan television just before the quake, the director of Mianzhu’s forestry bureau tried to calm residents by saying the mass migration was a normal part of the toad breeding season. The interview, posted on the Internet, has been provoking a torrent of angry remarks. At least 3,000 people have died in Mianzhu, and officials say another 4,500 are missing.

“Those seismological scientists are wasting taxpayer money,” said one blogger, who suggested that all the bureau’s employees resign. “Raising some toads would be better than spending money on those seismological scientists.”

I’m interested in examining the China Building Code. This news (from nytimes.com) seemingly recalled about this issue. Yeah 7.9 Magnitude means High intensity in Indonesia Building code. Indonesia follows strong column- weak beam system. If we follow the rule, this sytem should work properly – plastic hinge will appear in the column and beam and that would absorb energy from earthquake.  At least, It’ll give extra warning to people inside the building to run away from that building as soon as possible. It would probably decrease the amount of casualities. Unless, sudden destruction happened to the buildings. That was a pity. 12000 people should’nt have been dead in that way….

I assumed there’s something wrong with the design of the building. Moreover, it happened to Public building that- by rule-should be design stronger that any ordinary building surrounded. School building, Hospital, Office building are always designed somehow 1.5 times from ordinary building (Indonesia’s building code). I’m getting curious now…

 Hmm..anybody can help me? What’s the important chunk of  China Building Code that should be modified. Well, let’s find out!!

-frankly speaking…knowledge should have grown consciousness-

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“Struggle to Reach Quake Survivors”

BEIJING — Tens of thousands of people across southwest China remained buried beneath rubble on Tuesday as rescue workers struggled to reach areas cut off by a powerful earthquake that has left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands of others injured or homeless.

The authorities said that more than 18,000 people were still unaccounted for in Mianyang County in Sichuan Province and another 2,300 were missing in the collapse of a school and two factories in the nearby town of Shifang.

As a steady rain fell throughout the day, emergency workers struggled to pull survivors and bodies from flattened buildings in the few towns accessible to heavy rescue machinery. Nearly 2,000 of the dead included students and teachers killed when school buildings in the region crumbled.

More than 1,300 soldiers and medics spent the day clambering over landslides and the remnants of a mountain highway to reach Wenchuan, a city of 100,000 and the epicenter of the quake. The earthquake struck on Monday afternoon with a preliminary magnitude of 7.9.

Most victims were in the rugged center of Sichuan Province, although scores of deaths have been reported in five adjacent provinces. The official Xinhua news agency said that 37 tourists were killed when their bus was inundated by a rockslide, although it did not provide further details.

The authorities said 2,000 tourists were traveling throughout the region at the time of the quake, including 15 Britons and a group of 12 Americans on a panda-watching tour. A spokesman for the World Wildlife Fund, which sponsored the trip to the Wolong Nature Reserve, said they had yet to hear from the Americans, although he added they were in a rural area and presumed to be safe.

The earthquake on Monday shook buildings as far south as Thailand and set off another, smaller quake in the outskirts of Beijing, 900 miles away. The central government, which said it was spending $120 million on rescue efforts, has sent 50,000 soldiers to the disaster zone. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao flew to Sichuan hours after the earthquake struck, and has been shown personally directing the emergency effort.

News of the quake has dominated Chinese television coverage. The state-controlled media has been especially aggressive in its coverage, with reporters fanning out across the stricken region. Home video, cellphone images and commentary have been flowing uncensored onto Web sites.

In Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, thousands of residents, rattled by more than 300 tremors, camped out in the streets. One aftershock on Tuesday afternoon registered a magnitude of 6.1. Most of the worst-hit areas remained without cellphone service. Officials said 13 tank cars containing gasoline on a derailed freight train in neighboring Gansu Province were still burning on Tuesday night.

The quake destroyed 80 percent of structures in some of the towns and small cities near its epicenter, Chinese officials said. The earthquake is China’s biggest natural disaster since another one leveled the city of Tangshan in eastern China in 1976, leaving more than 240,000 people dead and posing a severe challenge to the governing Communist Party, which initially tried to cover up the catastrophe.

Monday’s quake was the latest in a series of events that have disrupted China’s planning for the Olympic Games in August, including widespread unrest among the country’s ethnic Tibetan population, which lives in large numbers in the same part of Sichuan Province where the earthquake struck.

China’s leaders often respond assertively to natural disasters, fearing a strong popular backlash if they bungle rescue efforts. But a complex relief operation on the scale that may be needed in Sichuan could strain Chinese resources even as the United Nations and many charitable groups are busy providing aid to Myanmar, which was hit by a huge cyclone this month. Chinese officials said they welcomed offers of foreign assistance, but it was unclear whether they would accept outside help.

Local leaders may also face intense scrutiny of their compliance with building codes. Since the Tangshan earthquake, China has required that new structures withstand major quakes. But the collapse of schools, hospitals and factories in several different areas around Sichuan may raise questions about how rigorously such codes have been enforced during China’s recent, epic building boom.

The powerful initial quake struck at 2:28 p.m. near Wenchuan County, according to China’s State Seismological Bureau. Most of the heavy damage appeared to be concentrated in nearby towns, which by Chinese standards are not heavily populated. Chengdu, the largest city in the area, with a population of about 4 million, is about 60 miles away and did not appear to have suffered major damage or heavy casualties.

Lagi-lagi…Allah menunjukkan kekuasaan atas hasil penciptaanNya..

05/12/2008

CHONGQING, China – Chinese state media say 3,000 to 5,000 people have died in one county in Sichuan province alone from a massive earthquake.

Nearly 900 students were trapped after their school collapsed about 60 miles from the epicenter. Photos showed heavy cranes trying to remove rubble from the ruined school.

The earthquake struck in the middle of the afternoon when classes and office towers were full.

The temblor was felt as far away asPakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported that four of the dead were ninth-grade students killed when their high school collapsed. Photos showed heavy cranes trying to remove rubble from the ruined school. Xinhua did not say how many of the students were feared dead.

It said its reporters in Juyuan township, about 60 miles from the epicenter, saw buried teenagers struggling to break loose from underneath the rubble of the three-story building “while others were crying out for help.”

Two girls were quoted by Xinhua as saying they escaped because they had “run faster than others.”

The earthquake comes less than three months before the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics, when China hopes to use to showcase its rise in the world.

The earthquake struck in the middle of the afternoon when classes and office towers were full, about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu. There were several smaller aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its Web site.

Calls into the city did not go through as panicked residents quickly overloaded the telephone system. The quake affected telephone and power networks, and even state media appeared to have few details of the disaster.

“In Chengdu, mobile telecommunication convertors have experienced jams and thousands of servers were out of service,” said Sha Yuejia, deputy chief executive officer of China Mobile.

Although it was difficult to telephone Chengdu, an Israeli student, Ronen Medzini, sent a text message to The Associated Press saying there were power and water outages there.

“Traffic jams, no running water, power outs, everyone sitting in the streets, patients evacuated from hospitals sitting outside and waiting,” he said.

Xinhua said an underground water pipe ruptured near the city’s southern railway station, flooding a main thoroughfare. Reporters saw buildings with cracks in their walls but no collapses, Xinhua said.

The earthquake also rattled buildings in Beijing, some 930 miles to the north, less than three months before the Chinese capital was expected to be full of hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors for the Summer Olympics.

Many Beijing office towers were evacuated, including the building housing the media offices for the organizers of the Olympics, which start in August.

“I’ve lived in Taipei and California and I’ve been through quakes before. This is the most I’ve ever felt,” said James McGregor, a business consultant who was inside the LG Towers in Beijing’s business district. “The floor was moving underneath me.”

In Fuyang, 660 miles to the east, chandeliers in the lobby of the Buckingham Palace Hotel swayed. “We’ve never felt anything like this our whole lives,” said a hotel employee surnamed Zhu.

Patients at the Fuyang People’s No. 1 Hospital were evacuated. An hour after the quake, a half-dozen patients in blue-striped pajamas stood outside the hospital. One was laying on a hospital bed in the parking lot.

Skyscrapers in Shanghai swayed and most office occupants went rushing into the streets.

In the Taiwanese capital of Taipei, 100 miles off the southeastern Chinese coast, buildings swayed when the quake hit. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The quake was felt as far away as the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, where some people hurried out of swaying office buildings and into the streets downtown. A building in the Thai capital of Bangkok also was evacuated after the quake was felt there.

A magnitude 7.8 earthquake is considered a major event, capable of causing widespread damage and injuries in populated areas.

The last serious earthquake in China was in 2003, when a 6.8-magnitude quake killed 268 people in Bachu county in the west of Xinjiang.

China’s deadliest earthquake in modern history struck the northeastern city of Tangshan on July 28, 1976, killing 240,000 people.

taken from:http://news.yahoo.com