EARTHQUAKE RISK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23111, 9 August 1938, Page 11

EARTHQUAKE RISK

DISREGARD DEPLORED DANGERS IN DOMINION THE DESIGN OF BUILDINGS [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] CHRISTCHURCH. Monday "Approximately 50,000 persons are billed every year in earthquakes; at intervals of less than a week there is a largo earthquake somewhere, and more than once monthly there is one large enough to devastate modern cities," said Mr. H. F. Baird, of the Magnetic Observatory, in an address in Christchurch. Mr. Baird said it was little short of amazing that so many modern building programmes should bo undertaken with little or no regard for earthquake dangers. It was possible to insure against damage by proper studios of the geographic distribution of the disturbances, their historical sequence, and their effects on buildings. To him it was amazing that so little seemed to be known of this fact in New Zealand, where there had beou so many instances of the damago earthquakes could cause. The world know to-day how to design earthquake resisting buildings of all sizes. Cities wanted to retain their massive buildings, because civic pride demanded it, but if they must have this ornate massiveness it behoved them to build in single units, such as steel-frame buildings of the one-unit type. It was essential, too, to place power-houses, railways, and similar national services where a seismic survey had attested the sites. Already lack of knowledge had placed some national units in sites probably unfavourable.