It's so sad watching the TV news and internet reports of China's massive earthquake and the aftershock. Today, they were showing footage of the steel reinforced concrete buildings and how they crumbled. People are in disbelief that many of the school buildings have collapsed so easily. Were the materials inferior? Maybe the designs were sub-standard. Who knows... at this point, it's only speculation.
I know if something like this happened in America, there would be years of accusations, investigations and lawsuits.
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briteyes35
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May 19 @ 8:33AM
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yes it is a horriable thing. china seems to be a much more family oriented country
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whiteghost672
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May 19 @ 9:37AM
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So many of those children that died came from one child families. It is so very sad what happen. One of my Chinese friends told me this morning that all of China will be going into pray & praying for all those that were killed.
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eastham
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May 30 @ 10:53AM
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About a decade ago, there was a sizeable earthquake in Japan and the devastation was also remarkable. At that time, many wondered about the building codes in Japan.
In the US, other natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes also bring the shortfalls of local building codes to light. I'm not talking about enormous disasters like Katrina, but other smaller hurricanes have caused enormous damage. In Florida, the property and casualty insurers have been trying albeit unsuccessfully to force improvements in the state's anemic building code. Also the Florida inspectors are notoriously corrupt. I can't remember the hurricane, but I do remember the story...the only house to withstand the hurricane in one particular development was the model home. The rest of the homes in the development were found to have been constructed with fewer nails than is recommended in the code, had insufficient hurricane roof bracing, etc. The only building in the development to be inspected was the model. This high end development was wiped out, but down the road a small cluster of homes built by Habitat for Humanity, which has its own strict building code, stood strong.
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chatillion
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May 30 @ 11:10AM
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Probably the hurricane in question was Andrew. It spawned twisters that generated winds over 200MPH. The roof off the National Hurricane Center was blown off ! !
Often, model homes are built by the contractors own people. After, the project gets built by sub-contractors.
Many garage doors gave way and the cars parked inside were blown from the buildings. Bark from the wind side of the storm was peeled from trees like they were hit with a sandblasting machine.
After Andrew, Dade County adopted stricter codes. I was installing a 40 foot tall radio tower on my property and they made me put a 2 cubic yard slab to hold it. That's 3 foot by 3 foot, 6 feet deep! Currently, they are allowed to mount highway poles in concrete (ready-made) cylinders that are 18" diameter, 4 feet long. Certainly my tower base is overkill.
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