When earthquake of level around M6.5 occur in Japan hardly claim life but if the same level will be in Indonesia, Philippines, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc. countries will have to loss in several thousands? Bryan Walsh wrote in TIME as earthquakes are gun and structures are bullet that load on gun and fire to people. He specially focus on south central Asia about earthquake and disaster in his last article How Shoddily Constructed Buildings Become Weapons of Mass Destruction . I totally agree with his article that main problem developing countries are not focused on implementation of seismic design and building codes to public during their private building constructions, hardly they follow for just civic buildings.
Most of the structures in rural areas are still stone masonry in mud mortar, during rainy season even they are more vulnerable to collapse with wetting of mud mortar, even they are as like the stack of stones so they cant hold more tremor intensity and fall down as blow on head. Rural area people must have to aware about seismic risk and its mitigation during construction of their house, with just a small additional amount (about 10%) investment on their house they can get more safer (about double ) building. Rural settlements are also catering more population in developing countries even up to now.
Today July 29, in 1980 western Nepal faced the tremor of M6.6 which took away about 150 lives and left injured nearly 1000 people. Estimated economic loss of that earthquake was ($245 milion!). Nepalese media and people may forget it but they have to remember those events and prepare for next event like this or even more devastating one in near future. Here is a short view on history of earthquake.
Location of 1980 earthquake
Nepal lies on seismic zone, it rests on the boundary of eurasian plate and indian plate with major faults parallel to its length. There are many fault activities responsible for ground tremors, some of them claim casualties but most of them are weak in their power. Nepal has the history of earthquake from 1255 AD when it was assumed that, 1/3 to 1/4th population got death due to earthquake about X in MM scale in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal.
(This is the part of paper that published on NEA 13th Convention technical journal in Kathmandu.)
ABSTRACT:
This
paper focus on study of worldwide changes in seismic design codes after large
earthquakes especially in design ground motion. Kathmandu is moving towards one
of mega cities in Asia, so for urban development in future we have to consider
all perspectives of design methodologies to have resilient city not only
Kathmandu but also all other major cities. High rise buildings and major
lifeline structures within city and gateway to cities are very important to be
safe. Design methodologies are major factors of control for the disaster
resilient structures alongside with regulation during construction. Here we
discuss about consideration of phase for design ground motion for safer
structural design.