| GP |
Posted
on 17-Nov-03 08:34 PM
Experts warn of earthquake havoc in Valley
Were a moderate-scale earthquake to hit Kathmandu Valley, around 4,000 people will die due to poorly engineered buildings, newspapers said Tuesday, quoting studies.
More than the earthquake itself, the collapse of tall, concrete building will cause more damage to lives in such a situation, experts warned quoting the study report.
"The Valley is in a precarious situation," said Ram Sharan Humagain, the chief of Social Welfare Department.
"Earthquakes are particularly dangerous for those living in densely populated cities," the Himalayan Times quoted Carollos Villacis of UNESCO, as saying.
Villacis, from Mexico is in Nepal to work with the Kathmandu Metropolitan City for designing plans to save Kathmandu from the hazards due to possible earthquakes, the daily said. nepalnews.com mr Nov 18
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| GP |
Posted
on 17-Nov-03 09:32 PM
Few facts that do
Kathmandu even does not have a statistics on how many people now
reside in Kathmandu. The error will not be in 1000, but, in 100,000
when it comes to population of Kathmandu valley.
It does not have statistics on housing: most of the housing are made quite
away from the drawings submitted to town planning.
Almost no house are designed by structural engineers: nine-by-nine
column and beam with 8-9 bars of 12mm size (irrespective of its
mild or torsteel: torsteel is more than 50% stronger than mildsteel,
torsteel is not equal to deformed or twisted steel, but, almost all
torsteel are twisted: spiral looking : there hints are for lay man).
Most of concreting has 1:3:5 cement : sand : roda ratio, with
infinite water (slump ratio almost zero), theoretically it should
be around 0.3 to 0.6 at most in dry roda. Packing of concrete
is so bad that you can see voids, wow, I remember a govt.
building that I was asked to pass that had more voids than
real quality concrete: I had to reject to sign............. threatened
by another fellow engineers.......... never mind. Afna sathi
bhai bhanchan k garne timi ta bhagi haleu, hami ta sahi garnai
parcha, kati din no bhanne. Japan ma haal basne mitra le
bhante Ashadh masanta ma jab suitcase ghar aauthyo timi
pani uhi dyang ka mula hunthyou.............. I regret I was
not there to prove him wrong............. Thats our engineering
: the state-of-the-art Nepali engineering. So, how are you
going to prove that how many house will really sustain earthquakes.
Well, in the newspaper, its said that "moderate EQ"? The news
article if you look its an article like this, you can say its completely a
formula article and all time OK news article. There are no verifiable
article or research............. At least in developed countries,
the news papers sometime write that EQ of 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 in
richter scale. But, you should also know that EQ in richter
scale alone will not tell you how much damage a building
can suffer, because richter scale is a scale that tells how
much energy was released in a EQ. It does not tell how
much gal (980gal equals acceleration due to Earth,
and Force = m . a where a is acceleration) a building
has sustained during the EQ. In Kobe EQ in 1995,
in Kobe are the ground acceleration went up to 700
to 800gal .......... So, if someone says that you house
will sustain EQ of 6 or 7 in richter scale, then, he
is idiot and trying to fool you. Of course, 7richter scale
EQ releases almost 10times more energy than the
EQ 6 in richter scale. Thus, don't get fooled with
such EQ forecast.
Well, Kathmandu 's worst part like in Kobe is there is no open
space in KTM. In engineer's annual conference, I raised the
issue what happened to KTM that does not have any public
part away from Tudikhel? Where is open space for resecue or
shetler if big EQ occures and house get damaged? In Japan,
public schools are made stronger to sustain higher acceleration
than normal buildings, such that peoples safe in side the public
schools, and public school have prove dual purpose? But, KTM
even does not have park for kids, nor for EQ or other disasters
nor any public schools worth of using during event of disasters?
The Dg of housing ..... dept. came to me after the session and
tried to explain urgent needs of such public parks and lack of
such public places for the use in the event of disasters.
Thanks to Keshav Sthapit he was the only one who used
last year's emergency for public's benefit and widened road.
We need wise and strong peoples like Keshave Sthapit if
we really want to build a safe, clean and friendly Kathmandu
to all kinds of people including kids (kids play soccer, cricket
volleyball and what not, all most all in public road made for
motor vehicle). ..............
Kati lekhau..............
GP
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