On Sep 7, 2010, at 6:34 PM, Bob W wrote: > what a mess. But it shows you the value of building regulations. I believe > the Haiti earthquake was of a similar magnitude, and look at the impact that > had.
Yes you're exactly right and it's something I'm very aware of. Not only the tight regulations but the lack of corruption means that buildings actually meet those regulations. It may be a pain having to boil all drinking water and "water the garden" to minimise the strain on sewers but I do have a roof over my head. I also have food, electricity, telephone, good roads etc. The list goes on and it could all have disappeared for weeks. As is the case with most things, timing is everything. I work in the CBD and if it had struck while I was out on my lunch break I could have ended up entombed. > One of my friends is a structural engineer and has been working out > there on reconstruction (pro bono). He has some terrible stories, but also > frustration at how easy it could have been to limit the destruction. I hope they apply some better standards when rebuilding. The unfortunate thing about many places (Haiti especially) is that they're very poor and even if they wanted to implement better building standards they may not be able to afford to do so. But I'm sure that many of the techniques just require a little knowledge and don't add much cost. Cheers, Dave -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
