Thread: Teachable Moment- Haiti EQ Follow Up - Building Damage in Earthquakes

As we expected when it occurred last Tuesday, the Haitian earthquake
has unfortunately proven to be a horrific human tragedy. The
combination of a major shallow earthquake near to a heavily populated
area in the third world is almost always a formula for disaster.

As a follow-up to the Haiti earthquake teaching resources that Tammy
Bravo, Jenda Johnson, and I developed for IRIS Teachable Moments last
week, we thought you might be interested in some teaching resources
about building damage in earthquakes. When viewing the collapsed
buildings in Haiti, I expect that you and your students ask questions
like: "Why did some buildings collapse and others remain standing?" or
"Can buildings be designed and constructed to withstand ground shaking
from a nearby magnitude
7.0 earthquake?" Those and other questions are addressed in the
attached document with links to teaching resources about buildings in
earthquakes.

A PDF that Jenda Johnson developed with some assistance from Tammy
Bravo and Bob Butler can be found at

http://www.iris.edu/hq/programs/education_and_outreach/moments

You will want to view this document using Adobe Acrobat Reader. The
PDF has some basic information about building damage in earthquakes
and ways to design earthquake-resistant structures. There are links to
video lectures that can be viewed online.

Two computer animations that I like very much were developed by the
USGS following the disastrous Pakistan earthquake that destroyed many
100s of buildings. You can find these animations posted online at:

http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/research/deformation/modeling/animations/

Go to the very bottom of this web page to find the animations titled:
"Animated building collapse" and "Animated building shaking after
seismic retrofit". This will take you a few minutes but it will be
time well spent as these are tremendous teaching resources.

Regards,

Bob Butler