The latest catastrophe led by the Tsunami in Palu, Indonesia, leaving more than 400 dead and hundreds of wounded, has once again clearly shown the need for a change in the types of buildings and buildings in these regions where the risks of suffering earthquakes are common and imminent, sometimes even being very difficult to predict with enough time for evacuation.
In the following photo that appears in the edition of the newspaper EL MUNDO, we see how, in the background, a detached house remains intact and firm, amidst the most complete destruction of the environment that surrounds it. Precisely this building of reinforced concrete has withstood the tremendous power of the wind, earthquake and water caused by the Tsunami. And it is that these structures, due to their great rigidity before horizontal forces, as well as their high degree of hyper-static nature, and for their ability to adapt plastic, among other virtues, are an excellent solution for seismic solicitations such as that suffered by Indonesia, In addition to its ability to withstand design overloads.
Structural solutions resistant to earthquakes
Unfortunately, it is usually the developing countries with fewer resources that are located in these zones of seismic risk and hurricane winds and, therefore, where it is not entirely accessible to build with concrete for their most basic constructions such as housing, while in our industrialized societies it is a cheap and common material.
Likewise, we have already talked about other effective structural solutions before this type of requests in countries with few resources. As is the case of the proposal of stiffening screens, already applied in a school in Port-au-Prince (Haiti), which consists of applying certain closure cloths of a conventional structure provided, such as stiffening screens. The system can be extrapolated to any type of building, including social housing. In addition, it is an economic alternative that is easy to implement in countries with the same characteristics as Haiti in terms of resources, labor and budget.
Sources: El Mundo
