On New Year’s Day, Japan’s Noto Peninsula was hit by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake, resulting in heavy casualties. I am a civil engineer and a member of the Tainan Fire Bureau Search and Rescue Team, but I was unable to help with rescue efforts in the disaster zone, as Japan politely declined offers of international rescue assistance.
However, I took a few days off from work to travel to the area and conduct a preliminary survey.
The main disaster causes were soil liquefaction and the collapse of old houses built with woven bamboo and mud walls. This raises the question of whether Taiwan could handle such a seismic disaster.
The areas hit hardest by the earthquake include Wajima, Shushu and Anamizu in the north of the peninsula. My survey focused on Nanao, which lies in the peninsula’s center.
As soon as I arrived, I saw signs of small-scale soil liquefaction along the road, causing protrusions, subsidence and cracks in the road surface. Houses in the disaster area are all three stories or lower in height. Soil liquefaction is affected by a high water table and the distribution of soil composed of different particles. Soil liquefaction only damaged homes in parts of Nanao, mostly in the form of toppled and collapsed old houses with woven bamboo and mud walls — the main cause of casualties.
During Qing Dynasty rule and the Japanese colonial era, many houses in Taiwan were built with woven bamboo and mud walls. The main materials in these homes, some of which still exist, were makino bamboo, mud and rice husks. When the 921 Earthquake hit, many earthen-walled houses collapsed, and although they were not as heavy as brick walls, the weight of fully collapsed roofs and entire houses was still enough to cause death and injury.
How many people in Taiwan still live in such weak and aging homes? This question should be a focal point for the Ministry of the Interior. Furthermore, one key point of the ministry’s earthquake-proofing reinforcement measures should be how to reduce casualties when earthen-walled houses are struck by earthquakes.
In the Noto Peninsula earthquake, heavy snowfall and inconvenient transportation exacerbated secondary disasters. Water stoppages and power outages worsened the situation. The main reason for water supply interruptions is water pipeline ruptures. If a disaster hits an area with emergency backup wells for war preparedness or drought relief, these wells might be an emergency solution, and should be another disaster prevention measure for Taiwan to consider. This would be critical if a disaster zone becomes isolated from outside supplies. As for power outages, they are caused by power line damage. If disaster strikes an area where solar panels have been installed on low-rise building roofs, they could provide some much-needed power.
Search-and-rescue teams should consider more lightweight rescue and relief equipment for deployment to hard-to-reach disaster zones. Any medium-sized search-and-rescue team in Taiwan consists of about 70 people with rescue equipment weighing several tonnes. How could such a team have reached the Noto Peninsula to help with disaster relief? In a scenario where all the collapsed houses are built with woven bamboo and mud walls, a team using lightweight equipment would have a good chance of rescuing many people and reducing casualties.
Let us pray for the Noto Peninsula disaster victims and hope that their lives could soon return to normal.
Johnson Kung is a board member of the Taiwan Professional Civil Engineers’ Association and a member of the Tainan Fire Bureau Search and Rescue Team.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Would China attack Taiwan during the American lame duck period? For months, there have been worries that Beijing would seek to take advantage of an American president slowed by age and a potentially chaotic transition to make a move on Taiwan. In the wake of an American election that ended without drama, that far-fetched scenario will likely prove purely hypothetical. But there is a crisis brewing elsewhere in Asia — one with which US president-elect Donald Trump may have to deal during his first days in office. Tensions between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea have been at
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hypersonic missile carried a simple message to the West over Ukraine: Back off, and if you do not, Russia reserves the right to hit US and British military facilities. Russia fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik,” or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine on Thursday in what Putin said was a direct response to strikes on Russia by Ukrainian forces with US and British missiles. In a special statement from the Kremlin just after 8pm in Moscow that day, the Russian president said the war was escalating toward a global conflict, although he avoided any nuclear
US President-elect Donald Trump has been declaring his personnel picks for his incoming Cabinet. Many are staunchly opposed to China. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Trump’s nomination to be his next secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, said that since 2000, China has had a long-term plan to destroy the US. US Representative Mike Waltz, nominated by Trump to be national security adviser, has stated that the US is engaged in a cold war with China, and has criticized Canada as being weak on Beijing. Even more vocal and unequivocal than these two Cabinet picks is Trump’s nomination for
An article written by Uber Eats Taiwan general manager Chai Lee (李佳穎) published in the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) on Tuesday said that Uber Eats promises to engage in negotiations to create a “win-win” situation. The article asserted that Uber Eats’ acquisition of Foodpanda would bring about better results for Taiwan. The National Delivery Industrial Union (NDIU), a trade union for food couriers in Taiwan, would like to express its doubts about and dissatisfaction with Lee’s article — if Uber Eats truly has a clear plan, why has this so-called plan not been presented at relevant
RSS