We have had two corruption earthquakes in a row. These are when you finally notice that there is no steel in the concrete, and the concrete looks like Brownie Mix. I was impressed that even Guatemala forces steel in the construction of their very weird peasant cabins. The people only have a cabin on a very small piece of land and the only way to expand for the grandkids is to go up. Thus, we have endless needle towers. Good thing there is steel in the columns. I have to assume that they tie in the slabs or the flooring, whatever they use.
The point was that it is obvious when building uses steel, and fairly thick reinforcing, not the few strands in the Turkey earthquake. Even when hit with 100 cm/s, lots of steel and tied slabs results in something that you can rescue people from. There is no PGV that should result in a pile of dust.
Yet, that is what we have. The Chile earthquake cracked and tilted soft-story condos at 40 cm/s. This makes the buildings unliveable, but everybody gets out. At 80 cm/s the whole building tips over, perfectly together. This should have been Ven, with their oil fortune. But, not a speck of steel anywhere.
Of course, the early pictures just show the disasters. I had to squint for the background to see undamaged buildings in Phil. Nothing yet for Ven, maybe some drone shots needed.
The mere fact of one building without steel shows the failure of traditional earthquake engineering. All this damage was high-velocity 'fling' or base shear, and not any 'resonance' damage. You can tell I think that earthquake engineers are flakes, and that's why only 3 people read me.
These earthquakes 'hammered' the buildings. All this engineering crap with shake tables is crap. The concept of 'soft story' condos is a creature of the shake table. The Chile earthquakes showed this, but nothing changed. However, I don't think we will get any 'critical' reports, since everybody has their iron in the fire, and wish to cover up things.
There is no malice in this. All these people are stand-up guys. Just trying to make a living.
ps the AI also mentioned that the earthquake dampers were overwhelmed. That's another silly thing that comes from shake table fantasy - no physics. You can get the hint that I think earthquake and weather people are exactly the same. Whatever floats their boat.
ps I am now calling Phil and Ven to be identical earthquakes in terms of ground velocity and 'no steel'. Ven had a bigger exposure and death count may exceed 10,000, because nobody got out.
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