... further enhancing the MRT means much more digging &
tunneling underground, but I wonder, are they doing ANY research on
the potentiality of Indoneisan quakes afterhsocks growing stronger
& especially the epicenter which is creeping closer every few
years?
... because this cannot be like the mistake they made with HDB,
whereby now, people are made to pay for Lift Upgrading (their
oversight that people DO grow old)....
=======================================================
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Singapore_Should_Conduct_Long_Term_Earthquake_Study.html
Singapore Should Conduct Long-Term Earthquake Study
by Staff Writers
Singapore (AFP) Jan 19, 2006
Singapore should conduct a long-term study on the impact of
earthquakes on the city-state, Southeast Asia's commercial hub
where key facilities are built on reclaimed land, a top US
scientist says.
James Rice, a visiting Harvard University earthquake expert, said
the study should focus on how structures built on reclaimed land
would be affected by a major quake.
Large areas of land-scarce Singapore have been reclaimed from the
sea.
"You have this massive container cargo port, you have fuel handling
facilities, you have energy generation -- all in this fringe of
marginal reclaimed land, which is land that greatly amplifies
earthquake shaking," Rice told reporters ahead of a public lecture
to be delivered Friday.
Rice said "the critical thing to understand in Singapore is what
would be the response of structures on that reclaimed land" during
an earthquake and how to predict the level of shaking to guide
urban planners.
"When I look around Singapore, I don't see where anyone is going to
build much... so presumably in the future much of what's done is
going to be on further reclaimed land."
Because of its sheltered geographical location Singapore is
unlikely to be hit by tsunamis as big as the earthquake-triggered
waves that hammered Indian Ocean coastlines on December 26, 2004,
Rice said.
The 9.3-magnitude quake off Indonesia's Aceh province in northern
Sumatra triggered tsunamis which killed an estimated 220,000 people
in countries around the Indian Ocean. Most of the victims were in
Aceh.
But Rice said Singapore remains within range of shockwaves from any
earthquake off Sumatra's western coast, where major quakes occur
every 200 to 300 years.
A quake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale occurred on the western
coast of Sumatra -- the point where quake shockwaves would most
strongly affect Singapore -- in 1833.
Rice is in Singapore to deliver a public lecture at the National
University of Singapore (NUS) about his studies of the Great
Sumatran Fault, which runs through the Indonesian island.
While some research on earthquakes has been done by the civil
engineering department at NUS, these were mostly one-off
projects.
"There is no cohesive national thrust in looking into the effects
of earthquakes," said Lee Fook Hou, an associate professor at the
school's civil engineering department.
Rice said a sustained study was necessary because Singapore's
situation is "roughly analogous" to that of Mexico City, which was
devastated by an earthquake in 1985 because it was built on an old
lakebed.
"You have extensive areas of marine clays, soft sediments,
reclaimed land and you're going to have more," he said.
Singapore should not rely on its experience as a modern nation to
think it was immune from the threat of a major earthquake off
Sumatra's western coast, Rice said.
Rice noted that US scientists learned that Los Angeles was built on
"terribly treacherous ground" only in the 1970s as the faults under
the city had been inactive following a big earthquake on the San
Andreas fault in 1857.
"It's just what happens when you put cities up fast -- you don't
get a good picture of the seismic environment that you live in,"
Rice said.
Source: Agence France-Presse
