Building regulations to add quake-proofing
- Source: Global Times
- [09:22 March 30 2011]
- Comments
A resident near Hujialou points to the leaky roof in a building built in 1958 Tuesday. Photo: Wang Zi/GT
By Xu Tianran
New building safety regulations that will be implemented on May 1 will include strengthening buildings against earthquakes for the first time, the Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development announced Monday.
A Beijing Housing Construction Safety Management Regulation draft was posted on August 4, 2010, on the Beijing government's Legal Affairs Office website in search of public feedback.
Due to a lack of proper regulation and for historical reasons, many of the capital's buildings have weak earthquake resistance ability, according to the notice, which did not specify details.
"I assume the historical reason it refers to is the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. After 1976, the earthquake resistance level for newly built buildings in Beijing was raised to level 8," said Li Luke, a doctor of engineering with the Institute of Architecture History and Theory at Tsinghua University. "That's the level that allows residents enough time to escape from buildings in an earthquake as severe as Tangshan's," she added.
According to the draft, buildings in the following situations must have their earthquake resistance ability evaluated: buildings approaching or exceeding their service life; buildings with none or limited measures taken to enhance their resistance and buildings that are about to undergo structural changes or that will be re-purposed.
"The official information platform, the Beijing Daily, will publish the whole version of the regulation in the coming days," a publicity employee of the Legal Affairs Office told the Global Times.
"Our university had steel reinforcement bars that were visible from the outside," Guo Siyao, a Chinese student who attended Tohoku University in Japan, told the Global Times.
Guo was in her dormitory in Sendai when the recent earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit.
"The dormitory was strong enough to withstand the shaking," Guo said. "I haven't seen any buildings in Beijing that have such reinforcement bars to protect them."
The commission's publicity office could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
