Earthquake

Kobe, Japan, January 1995

4. How do people adapt to earthquakes?
a. Planning
b. Hardware
- New infrastructure
- Strengthening existing infrastructure

c. Software

- Education
- Monitoring and warning system

Conclusion



















a. Planning

Most of the damage we associate with earthquakes involves human-built structures: people trapped by collapsed buildings or cut off from vital water or energy supplies.

Engineering the seismic safety of a structure involves the same considerations as any real estate venture—design, construction, and location, location, location.

The taller a structure, the more flexible it is. The more flexible it is, the less energy is required to keep it from toppling or collapsing when the earth's shaking makes it sway.

Of course, the materials a building is constructed from also determine its strength, and again, flexibility is important. Wood and steel have more give than stucco, unreinforced concrete, or masonry, and they are favored materials for building in fault zones.

Engineers must design in structures that can absorb the energy of the waves throughout the height of the building. Floors and walls can be constructed to transfer the shaking energy downward through the building and back to the ground. The joints between supportive parts of a building can be reinforced to tolerate being bent or misshapen by earthquake forces.














b. Hardware
- New infrastructure
- Strengthening existing infrastructure


Engineers think a magnitude 7 quake near San Francisco could damage this world-famous bridge. Retrofitting the Golden Gate is a $400 million project that includes putting the approaches to the bridge on base isolators, strengthening the connections between the sections of roadbed, and bracing the support towers. When the decade-long project is complete, the Golden Gate should be able to tolerate a magnitude 8.3 quake.



Some of the older freeway bridges had already undergone retrofitting, the process of adding features to a structure to strengthen it against the forces of earthquakes. All the overpasses that failed during the quake were still awaiting their retrofit.
Older overpasses are supported by vertical steel rods embedded in the concrete of the pillars holding up the highway. If these rods are bent by the pressure of the freeway rocking above them, they lose their strength and continue to bend outward. Ultimately, the pillar can collapse. The steel girders prevent these rods from bending too far outward, helping the pillar retain enough strength to support the freeway above it.
Along with adding steel girders, engineers can add size and weight to a bridge’s footings, and anchor the footings more securely into the ground. Thick cables hold sections of the freeway together and secure it to the support pillars.






Examples
San Francisco's TransAmerica pyramid is famous for its architecture. Diagonal trusses at its base protect it from both horizontal and vertical forces. ‘





d. Software

- Education
- Monitoring and warning system

Other ways to avoid disaster Even without being able to predict earthquakes, city planners and engineers can put warning systems in place that will save lives. One early warning scheme relies on the difference in travel time between waves created by an earthquake. The relatively mild primary (P) waves travel much faster than the more destructive secondary (S) waves. Sensors on buildings and other structures that detect the P waves can provide warning of the coming S waves. While that warning would arrive less than a minute before the S waves, that's enough time for automated systems to shut factories down, close bridges and freeway overpasses, or slow trains—all measures that could prevent disastrous consequences.
It is also possible to warn people of tsunamis, huge waves of water that overwhelm coastlines as a result of earthquakes that occur on the ocean floor. In December 2004, a massive earthquake occured off the coast of Sumatra, killing tens of thousands of people living in countries where there were no tsunami warning systems. The government of Indonesia is now developing a warning system to prevent a similar tragedy. Japan and the western United States have well-developed tsunami warning systems, should a quake occur offshore of those areas.
Scientists are hoping to learn much more about how earthquakes happen at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth (or SAFOD for short). The SAFOD project involves boring a hole into the fault and putting equipment there. These instruments will watch the San Andreas from deep within it, sending back mountains of new data about the most mapped, drilled, prodded, and spied on fault on the planet. Yet even with an ever-increasing knowledge about the inner workings of the earth, scientists probably won't be able to tell us when the great fault will shimmy like it did in 1906. Perhaps the best they can do is help us better understand how to build for the next Big One.

Conclusion
We had no ways of stopping Earthquakes from happening.And we cannot prevent Earthquakes.
The only way is to safeguard the things we had and to damage control.
If we cannot oppose it then rather, flow with it.
There are several things and structures set up to prevent earthquakes.

Done by:
>Chenxi
>Jia Ni
>Kai Jie
>Edwin