(Untitled)

[she_ruiqi]

Burma 'guilty of inhuman action'

I should have thought it was inhuman inaction. At least China's holding up much better. But I realised something: in earthquakes, it's the buildings that collapse and trap people that kill people, not the earthquake itself, right?

:(

Comments

[savedthrugrace]

"in earthquakes, it's the buildings that collapse and trap people that kill people, not the earthquake itself, right?"

Interesting point. I'm thinking about the ramifications of this. As a matter of fact, the Geography teacher (not mine because I don't take it) was saying that the pandas were probably unaffected (can't remember, but he mentioned something funny in relation to this). Down with buildings!

[she_ruiqi]

I hope you didn't mean the last sentence literally. :P

[theotherworldly]

You can't blame it all on the buildings -- it really is impossible to predict the directions of which the primary waves travel at the point of a seismic energy release. Even reinforced with steel skeletons, the buildings will not be able to withstand both horizontal, vertical, and forces acted by collapsed ceilings. The best that buildings can do other than maintain a 'bouncy' foundation which bounces with the buildings is to build it such that when ceilings and walls collapse they form triangles (like corners) so that there can be more survivors.

Of course, I don't mean the buildings aren't at fault. This is a rapidly modernised country with decentralised provincial rule and little maintenance or authorization on building ethics. Duh there'd be 'tofu' buildings.

As for Myanmar, it isn't just inhuman inaction, there's a lot of unfortunate geology ... 1/3 of its boundaries are coastal, and the Irrawaddy delta is low-lying with high population. Any tropical cyclone would damage it severely.

[she_ruiqi]

Agreed.

[cheronl]

Haha but I think Brenda's point is that,

If we all lived in mongolian-like bamboo cloth tents, even if they collapsed nobody would die.

Or even better, if we lived under the stars on a green field, you'd just have a nice vibrating sensation?!

[she_ruiqi]

Yeah. But if we lived under the stars on a green field, we'd get awfully wet when it rained.

Nice vibrating sensation is pulling it a bit far - I think it's more like terrifying homogeniser shaking, which would be very much more terrifying if you lived near some place with loose rocks on the side of a mountain (because that can kill people too).

[forochel]

or it's the crack the splits the earth and people fall into it.

8Db