How much damage did the Dominican Republic have from the earthquake? There must have been some.
Sunday 17 January 2010
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8 comments:
I have not read of any serious damage suffered in the southwest of the DR. The probable reason for this is construction practices. Port Au Prince is a populous city of cement buildings which contain very little in the way of steel rebar and are thus subject to crumbling. In the rural interior we observed mostly stick, plywood and tin construction.
In all of the video of the damaged buildings I have not seen one single piece of rebar sticking out of the broken slabs. Good to see I'm not the only one to notice. The construction companies who built those death traps should be up on murder charges.
Quite true. Poverty is what kills in earthquakes. As soon as the immediate crisis is over we should immediately send them some Capitalism....although I'm not sure we have any to spare.
Daniel, if they were only contracted to put up concrete then they've done nothing wrong....or do you have proof they have not fulfilled their contracts?
Let's not go off halfcocked. Maybe there is no-one to blame?
Maybe it's the landowners not specifying the correct materials?
Or maybe the building codes are too lax?
A 7.0 earthquake is DEVASTATING, as were the 6.0, 5.9 aftershocks that followed. How would reinforced concrete hold up?
From looking at maps on USGS.gov, it's clear that the DR wasn't really affected by the earthquake. Also, the major population centers are very far from Haiti.
They never use rebar in that part of the world. I suggest that the main reason the DR hasn't seen much damage is because the ground accelerations were much lower in the DR. See the USGS' Shakemap for this event:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/global/shake/2010rja6/
I've asked mysel the same question re: DR.
I suspect it is the same reason that Alabama didn't seem to suffer as much as New Orleans. The degree of damage may have been similar but the degree of ill preparation and whining were not even close. I do agree however, that the constructio in Port-au-Prince is pathetic. You'd think some of the billions we gave them would have gone for a bit of rebar.
I just saw a bunch of photos on CNN of LA fire fighters cutting steel-reinforcing bars. I guess they do use steel rebar in Haiti, when they can afford it.
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