At a recent exhibition of the structural engineer Webb Yates, Tom Robertshaw of Techniker raised the spectre that is earthquake retrofitting. With the projected doubling of the world’s population , this means that we are constructing more buildings now than at any time in our history. But how many of these buildings are safe? Furthermore how many buildings around could kill their occupants? Some of the world’s biggest cities have suffered earthquakes that have been catastrophic, where  death rates were not proportionate to the earthquake’s magnitude, because of blasé attitudes towards seismic design. Cities need to confront the monumental problem of seismic retrofitting existing killer buildings. The design question is how to shore up an existing city of cards…

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7283/full/463878a.html

CASE CITY 1: Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality will establish a centre fully equipped with adequate technology and facilities in order to be prepared against a disaster that may affect Istanbul and to develop public consciousness about the disasters and specifically about earthquakes…

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