If you want a fuller discussion of this topic, listen to this Disaster Zone podcast, “Solving Seismic Structural Issues,” that has an expert guest, a structural engineer who specializes in seismic building designs.
I’ll briefly summarize my own thinking here. The majority of Americans would think, “We must have better building codes and construction methods.” To that I would say, “Not so fast.”
The worst possible building to be in here in the USA, of which there has to be tens of thousands, is what is called unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. These are the older brick buildings that exist almost everywhere that were built before we had modern building codes. This is true of bridges built before 1971, when it was only then that modern bridge building codes were implemented following a California earthquake. Therefore, we have a huge stock of these “very collapsible” buildings — and bridges.
Even modern buildings being built today are being constructed to a “life safety” standard. That means they should not pancake like those we’ve seen of late in Turkey. It also means that you should be able to safely evacuate, but might not ever be able to re-enter the building due to structural damages to the facility. One caveat is that I know that some modern buildings have been looked at in detail by seismic engineers and there are risks to them not being seismically sound in all situations.
The only really “earthquake proof” buildings (I say that with a bit of hesitancy) are what are called “immediate occupancy structures.” They are designed to be able to remain operational immediately following an earthquake. Typically, these are hospitals, fire stations, and other critical facilities, like an Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Someday, here in the USA we will have scenes like those cascading across our TV sets. Frantic efforts at finding people who are still alive. Unfortunately, that window is closing very rapidly in Turkey and Syria. Perhaps they might find someone who has survived, but the 72 hour window for being successful has now passed. The level of damages and the cold are two factors impacting my pessimism.
