Can we Quake-Proof a City?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2016
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
They are at once the most predictable and unpredictable killers. We know continent-sized slabs of earth are moving beneath our feet. We know they move at a speed that is often harmless - the same rate as our fingernails grow. But sometimes, without warning, they can slip tens of metres in a second - and bring down whole cities. About a million people have died in earthquakes in the last two decades, most in a handful of huge quakes in urban areas. Yet the populations of cities at risk continue to grow. So, how can we quake-proof a city?
(Photo: A general view shows excavator vehicles and rescue workers in front of a building which collapsed in the 6.4 magnitude earthquake, in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan early on 9 February, 2016. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC World Service. This is Neil Riselle with the inquiry. |
| 0:07.0 | This week, can we earthquake-proof a city? city. The Taiwanese city of Tainan last month in the moments after a quake. Rescuers face an urgent and dangerous puzzle. |
| 0:27.0 | It's dark. |
| 0:28.0 | Their torches show rubble before a building badly askew. |
| 0:32.0 | They throw ladders against it and climb in. |
| 0:35.0 | When floodlights arrive, they reveal startling damage. |
| 0:42.0 | A 17-story block of flats has collapsed onto its side. |
| 0:47.0 | The concrete floors are in a herringbone pattern. Hundreds of people are trapped. |
| 0:52.0 | And across Taiwan, people are hoping the same thing |
| 0:55.1 | doesn't happen to them. It was about 4 a.m. and I woke up with a start. The |
| 1:01.0 | entire building was just shaking very violently. It was quite loud and I |
| 1:07.2 | honestly couldn't tell you how long it lasted. It just I just remember thinking |
| 1:10.8 | please be done, please be done. |
| 1:12.6 | As Quakes go, it wasn't even that powerful. |
| 1:18.0 | Magnitude 6.4, but it left buildings leaning precariously and 116 people dead. |
| 1:25.0 | They add to a toll of almost 1 million dead in earthquakes in the last 20 years. |
| 1:31.0 | Is such death and destruction inevitable? Or as we're asking |
| 1:36.3 | this week can we quakeproof a city? Part 1. Lessons of the University of Cambridge in the UK. |
| 2:07.0 | There's a Himalayas in Nepal as well and Haiti. |
| 2:12.0 | Tehran a city which is a in Nepal as well and Haiti. |
| 2:13.0 | Tehran, a city which is highly prone to earthquakes, |
| 2:16.6 | have now over 9 million people living in that one city, |
... |
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