The North Caucasus is one of the most seismically active regions of Russia, along with Kamchatka, the Kuril Islands and the area of Lake Baikal.Recently, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ordered to agree, until mid-April, on a proposal to extend the federal program of improving seismic resistance of residential homes and livelihoods, which will last until 2014.Vladimir Smirnov, the Director of the Center for Research of Seismic Stability of Buildings named after V. A. Kucherenko, vice President of the Russian Association of earthquake engineering.
The Center for Research of Seismic Stability of Buildings has prepared new standards of construction in seismic areas. They take into account the new seismic zoning and new maps, which were introduced after the Sakhalin earthquake. In many areas intensity has increased, in some of them at some by one-two points, but there are areas on Sakhalin and Kamchatka where the intensity increased by three points. And if the intensity has increased by 1 point, this means that the load on the building has doubled, and if the intensity increased by 2 or 3 points, the seismic load could increase by 4 or even 8 times. Therefore the rules have been updated. Its first edition received many suggestions and comments, and now the second edition is being prepared, which takes into account all these comments. In fact, if buildings are constructed according to standards, then there is no single instance of their destruction. This is confirmed by the research we have carried out after all the earthquakes in Russia and even some abroad. The devastation that occurred in Tuva and Khakassia, affected buildings constructed with certain violations.
In the early 1990s, when the USSR disintegrated into separate republics, construction was often conducted without proper supervision. This problem was not only here but throughout the CIS – planning organizations appeared of 2-3 people, who were designing quite complex structures, therefore many mistakes were committed. I think the main mistake was deviation from norm.
German Shestoperov, deputy Director for science of the PLC "Search"
If we look at statistics of the social and economic losses worldwide over the past 110 years, we see that on average in the world during one a decade about 200,000 people die as a result of earthquakes and the collapse of buildings. Sometimes the figure is lower, sometimes higher - up to 500,000. The general trend is that over time the social and especially economic losses increase sharply. This suggests that the anti-seismic measures being implemented in the world are insufficient, and the threat is more serious than the means to combat it. It is necessary to solve a variety of issues of earthquake engineering, bearing in mind the implementation of the requirements. It is necessary to develop a system of accounting for various factors affecting the earthquake. The recent earthquake in Japan (as well as some other earthquakes) is a good example. Japan has very robust rules of Earthquake Engineering, extremely reliable, taking into account different types of loads. Nevertheless, in the relatively recent past, when there was a very strong earthquake in Kobe, a large percentage of buildings were devastated and many people died, though these were not old buildings (and in fact Japanese norms have been functioning for already about 100 years). These buildings had been built just a year or two before the earthquake, and Japanese specialists consider themselves protected from the effects of earthquakes. But in reality there was a very big loss.
The statement by the Prime Minister on the need to continue considering earthquake engineering topics, including the most important project of standardizing threats of earthquake engineering and measures to protect against them, is the correct suggestion, and it should be supported and implemented. But we must bear in mind that the continued funding of these works is only one aspect of the issue, and another aspect is saturation of these works. This is precisely the field for our activities. If we use foreign standards - and I absolutely do not mind this - of course, we should adopt from them everything progressive applicable to our case, but only this, not the entirety, because any rules have their drawbacks. It is necessary to approach the issue sensitively, and take what we need to improve our situation, and not repeat someone else's shortcomings of Japanese and American standards.
Speaking about the rules, we should carefully examine and consider, these are the norm of those countries which are most often subjected to destructive influences, and have the greatest experience of antiseismic protection structures. This is, above all, Japan: they repeatedly experienced such effects and have great experience in the survey of these effects and a comprehensive system of protection, though still imperfect, but nonetheless considering many factors. In second place I would put the United States. We should pay special attention to the fact that since the 1970s the United States has carried out work not only on the assessment of new construction, but also on assessment of enhancement of objects on the basis of extensive work on the survey and changes of regulations, with a significant increase in loads and in relation to existing facilities. After all, our problem is not just that we build enough new earthquake-proof buildings, but also that there is a large number of objects that require amplification.
Vladimir Smirnov
As for the strengthening of buildings, even a rich country like Japan cannot strengthen all the seismically-unstable buildings. We must have an individual approach. I looked at the meetings Putin conducted last time and this time, it was said there that two billion dollars is the amount the destruction in Tuva caused, and 5 billion in Khakassia. From my point of view, any money allocated for restoration and enhancement will never be enough. One must select the criteria and those buildings that actually can be strengthened. And we have such methods. In our Center we have developed methods of seismic enhancement of buildings, the newest ones (use of seismic isolation, use of composite materials, etc.). As a general rule, if earlier the Ministry of Regional Development, in order to examine the condition of buildings in the first place addressed the representatives of the engineering profession, now for such actions first of all come the representatives of the Ministry for Emergencies. What can they examine there? They have a completely different task. Nobody invited us to the recent earthquake site, while we simply do not have our own funding for such work. I think we need to prevent damage from earthquakes, and all forces should be directed at strengthening and developing new systems of seismic protection. But now a huge amount of money is allocated to offset the effects of earthquakes. From my point of view, the funding is turned the wrong way.
