Why was Taiwan well prepared for the earthquake?

CGTN Europe

Dr Agathoklis Giaralis, Associate Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Khalifa University spoke to CGTN Europe on Taiwan’s earthquake.

Transcript

00:00 Agathoklis Giralis is Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at

00:05 Khalifa University Abu Dhabi and an expert on structural dynamics at City

00:09 University of London. Professor good to see you, perhaps it's still too early to

00:13 give a definitive answer but what are your initial impressions on the impact

00:17 of this earthquake and Taiwan's preparedness and resilience?

00:22 First of all thank you very much for having me in program. I have to say that

00:29 on average Taiwan proves to be very resilient given the magnitude and the

00:39 severity of this particular seismic event. Yes there are some damages and

00:47 some buildings have tilted, yes there are landslides but overall the extent of

00:55 damages is well within what we would expect from a very well prepared

01:05 country for such natural disasters. And presumably part of the story is

01:10 engineers, architects building in resilience to infrastructure in

01:15 anticipation of earthquakes. That is right, the fact of the matter is that in

01:24 most in all seismic high seismicity regions in the world there are currently

01:31 very good seismic codes for earthquake resistant design of structures. So the

01:39 knowledge is there but what makes the difference is how people adhere, the

01:44 different countries, the different regions adhere to these building codes,

01:49 how engineers design and equally important how they make sure during

01:56 construction that design plans are followed religiously. I like to say and

02:05 and so quality control makes a big big difference as well as preparedness and

02:12 training of people before, during and after such an event. What to do and

02:20 what not to do before, during and after the event. I'm guessing this is a story as

02:25 far as the engineering goes around poverty, wealth and corruption. I mean is

02:30 that something that poorer countries would be able to achieve or is

02:34 earthquake resilience a luxury only affordable perhaps by wealthy countries?

02:42 Current and modern codes for seismic resistance do take a lot into

02:51 account on the cost effectiveness, the cost effective factor. So in other words

02:58 we make sure that we don't put arduous requirement for extra cost to make

03:10 sure that a structure will resist, will sufficiently resist earthquakes at least

03:15 for life safety, to meet life safety requirements. So this is out of the

03:22 question. It is affordable at least for big new build structure. What is it does

03:29 there is a challenge there is what happens with code deficient existing

03:35 structures that were built on different eras before current seismic code. So for

03:44 example in Taiwan there was a major revision of the country's standards in

03:50 1997 so structures built before that date will be code deficient and bringing

03:58 them to the today's requirement level of earthquake resistance is would cost a

04:05 lot of money. And of course as you mentioned corruption and I wouldn't say

04:13 necessarily corruption but poor mentality or poor quality control during

04:20 construction and poor awareness of the consequences of what may happen in the

04:27 event of a major seismic event. If you have some poor quality control in a

04:32 building that is built in London okay you may have some water leaks for

04:37 example or some noise from next doors which okay is disruptive on a daily

04:43 basis but if poor construction happens in a high seismic area and a major one

04:49 happens a major earthquake event happens then this is life-threatening okay so

04:54 the consequences are different. Professor we have to leave it there great to get

04:58 your expertise on this thank you very much indeed Professor Agalocas Chiriaras.

05:03 Thank you very much.

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