EARTHQUAKE RESEARCH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 5 August 1931, Page 6

EARTHQUAKE RESEARCH

MINIMISING DANGERS (From “The Mail’s” Parliamentary Reporter) 4 - < 4tii: A-u^uAd: I Mr W. ..Nash iltfehits’fekask the .Minister i« Chargo of the 'Scientific and Industrial Research Department whether lie has’seen the "Los Angelos Times” of 12th June, 193 i, in which an address by the Rev. Joseph Lynch is reported setting out safeguards which it is proposed to take to minimise the. dangers arising from earthquake, and to ask him if he will co-operate in the proposal to set up an earthquake research institute. Mr Nash said: “Father Lynch, who is head of the seismograph station at Fordhnm University, New York, advocated the founding of a national earthquake research institute, with facilities to make possible the solution of the practical problems of seismology. In the report of his address, Father Lynch cites that while it is not possible to give full warning of earthquakes, the partial warding given in Japan of last year prevented the repetition of the disaster of 1923. People were warned to extinguish their fires after the seismographic instruments had detected the preliminary tremors a few days before the main earthquake. He also cited that a revised building code, both in, California amt Japan, had been worked out, and were based on vibration research made by a shaking table at Sanford Universilir ”