Housing In Earthquake Zones

Wondering about the kinds of houses are built in earthquake zones? The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) encyclopedia, at http://www.world-housing.net/ , describes the types of housing used in several different countries which are susceptible to earthquakes.

To use this site you'll have to use IE, enable ActiveX, and have Shockwave player installed. The front page has a Shockwave world map. Click on an area of the map and that area comes into focus with a list of countries available. (Areas include Asia, North America, etc.)

Click on a country and you'll get detailed information on it, including a hazard map (possibilities of earthquakes across that country), general country information (such as urban indicators and human settlement indicators) housing reports (available in PDF and HTML format) and a list of country specific links. The housing reports provide extensive information on housing types in the country, though each country varies on how many reports it has. India is a good country to look at -- a report on the bhonga, a traditional construction type of the Kutch district of Gujarat state in India, provides pictures and background on how such structures did during the 7.6 Bhuj earthquake in 2001. There are several other housing reports for India in addition to this one.

If you don't want to browse this site, you can also use the search engine to search by geographical area, building function, urban or rural construction, period of practice (how long that kind of building has been built), load bearing of structure, building materials, and other variables.

Posted to Science-Engineering