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Simple and easy way to make a room more earthquake resistant
I happened to walk into a construction area in Kathmandu yesterday and was curious about a little shed that they were building. It's a small room - roughly 10ft x 10ft and about 8ft tall. The walls were basically being made of stacked bricks and about 16 inches thick but what was most interesting was that there were NO cement or mortar or reinforcement being used. Just plain old bricks stacked on top of each other and a basic corrugated metal roof.
I asked the fellow building it and he told me to my horror that no, it was't going to be used for storing stuff but rather was going to be a temporary house for the guard who's going to be providing security for the site. This is just an accident waiting to happen - any small tremor from an earthquake and this little shed will literally collapse on whoever is unfortunate enough to be inside.
The owner of the project is unwilling to spend the extra bucks to use cement on the walls (the point being that this is a temporary structure and they want to use the bricks towards the end of the project). More importantly it turns out that this is common practice in any construction site in Nepal. So I proposed a cheap and easy solution - basically put some corrugated sheets on the inside walls and attach them securely with some steel pipes. For anyone who's skeptical check out the video below.
Humans have a tendency to think that efficacy is directly related to cost and effort. But it's really a false assumption. A little effort can go a long way in making buildings a lot safer during an earthquake. And fortunately a lot of these methods are very cheap as well. So there really is no excuse to not create structures in Nepal that are at the very least life safe, i.e. something that doesn't kill the people inside. All that's needed is public awareness, education, and will power.
I asked the fellow building it and he told me to my horror that no, it was't going to be used for storing stuff but rather was going to be a temporary house for the guard who's going to be providing security for the site. This is just an accident waiting to happen - any small tremor from an earthquake and this little shed will literally collapse on whoever is unfortunate enough to be inside.
The owner of the project is unwilling to spend the extra bucks to use cement on the walls (the point being that this is a temporary structure and they want to use the bricks towards the end of the project). More importantly it turns out that this is common practice in any construction site in Nepal. So I proposed a cheap and easy solution - basically put some corrugated sheets on the inside walls and attach them securely with some steel pipes. For anyone who's skeptical check out the video below.
Humans have a tendency to think that efficacy is directly related to cost and effort. But it's really a false assumption. A little effort can go a long way in making buildings a lot safer during an earthquake. And fortunately a lot of these methods are very cheap as well. So there really is no excuse to not create structures in Nepal that are at the very least life safe, i.e. something that doesn't kill the people inside. All that's needed is public awareness, education, and will power.
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