All posts tagged: buildings

Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake Strikes off Indonesia’s Coast, Killing at Least 47 and Toppling Buildings

Magnitude 7.7 Earthquake Strikes off Indonesia’s Coast, Killing at Least 47 and Toppling Buildings

Published by Sam Flores

MAUMERE, Indonesia (AP) — A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia early Saturday, killing at least 47 people, collapsing buildings and causing panic in a region prone to deadly quakes. Authorities said dozens more residents were injured and warned that the death toll would almost certainly rise. Authorities issued a tsunami warning and urged coastal residents to move to higher ground, but later lifted the warning when Indonesia’s meteorological agency said monitoring showed no significant sea-level changes that posed a threat to coastal communities. Some smaller tsunamis were reported. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake hit eastern Indonesia’s Flores region at a depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles) at 5:58 a.m. local time. Its epicenter was 68 km (42 miles) north-northwest of the city of Ende in East Nusa Tenggara province. The quake triggers landslides and generates small tsunamis The meteorological agency said the quake was followed by at least 235 aftershocks, with the largest recorded at magnitude 6.2. The agency’s sea-level monitoring stations acknowledged some small tsunamis reached coastal …

Israeli strikes on residential buildings kill at least 13 in Gaza

Israeli strikes on residential buildings kill at least 13 in Gaza

Published by Sam Flores

Gaza civil defence officials said Sunday that 13 people were killed in strikes that hit multiple residential buildings around midnight. Palestinian health officials said Israeli warplanes carried out separate strikes ‌across the enclave in the northern Gaza City, central city of Deir al-Balah and the southern area ⁠of Khan Younis. Gaza’s civil defence rescue service, which operates under Hamas authority, on Sunday said eight people were killed in strikes around midnight that hit multiple residential buildings, and five others were killed later in the day. In one attack near the central Gaza Strip, a man and his wife were killed and several others were wounded when an Israeli military helicopter struck an apartment, a civil defence spokesman said. A father, mother and their 9-year-old son were killed around dawn after a strike ‌on a house in the Mawasi area of Khan Younis. Read moreHamas agrees to disarm under Trump ceasefire deal Gaza authorities earlier said that Israeli strikes on Saturday also damaged a hospital’s medical supplies, a day after Hamas said it agreed to the latest …

Congress Introduces Bill to Protect Artworks in Government Buildings

Congress Introduces Bill to Protect Artworks in Government Buildings

Published by Jenni Sidey

On July 14, two Congressional representatives—Dina Titus (D-Nevada) and Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) proposed a bill that would protect public artworks commissioned by the U.S. government. The PRESERVE Act (“Protecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act”) would require the General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, to identify any artworks contained within government buildings deemed “surplus property” and form a committee to oversee the future of said artworks. Related Articles “Publicly commissioned art should never become collateral damage when federal buildings are sold or otherwise disposed of” said Titus, a co-sponsor of the bill, in a statement. “It is critical that we establish a process to protect these national treasures and ensure the public has full access to the 26,000 works of art exhibited in museums and federal buildings around the country, no matter who sits in the Oval Office. Art commissioned by the federal government is a vital part of our national heritage and deserves to be preserved for future generations.” While the language of the PRESERVE Act does not …

Guggenheim Museum Among NYC Buildings That Tested Positive for Legionnaires’ Amid Disease Outbreak

Guggenheim Museum Among NYC Buildings That Tested Positive for Legionnaires’ Amid Disease Outbreak

Published by Sam Flores

New York City’s famed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum was among a number of Manhattan buildings that recently tested positive for the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease amid the city’s latest outbreak. The city health department on Friday released a list of 31 buildings on the Upper East Side that have been ordered to clean and disinfect their cooling towers as the city deals with the latest outbreak of the disease, which is a serious form of pneumonia. The distinctive, cylindrical-shaped art museum was among 19 that have already completed the remediation, according to the department’s list. The rest were expected to complete the work by Saturday. City officials stressed the positive test results do not confirm any of the buildings as the source of outbreak as the tests conducted could not distinguish between live and dead bacteria. The museum was also not shuttered at any point because of the positive test or remediation work, they said. “The city has confirmed that there is no additional action needed at this time, and this poses no risk …

Reeling from Venezuela’s earthquakes, churches rush to inspect buildings, distribute supplies

Reeling from Venezuela’s earthquakes, churches rush to inspect buildings, distribute supplies

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — The day after twin earthquakes rocked northern Venezuela, Presbyterian Pastor Ricardo Corzo Moreno was doing two jobs at once: calming his family through the aftershocks and helping launch a 24-hour prayer and collection center for survivors. For days after the June 24 quakes, as aftershocks rocked Caracas, his family took turns staying awake in case they needed to flee their building. Eight-year-old Miranda didn’t sleep through the night until Tuesday (June 30), when the family brought the children to relatives in Barquisimeto, more than 200 miles away.  “Not even in my worst nightmares did I imagine a situation as apocalyptic as the current one,” Corzo Moreno said in Spanish.  The official death toll is 2,295, likely an underestimate — more than 46,000 people have been reported missing on a website where families can share details, and it’s unclear how many have been found. Across Venezuela, faith leaders who are themselves impacted by the disaster have become its first responders. Corzo Moreno is working with Bishop Keison Carrillo of the Emanuel federation — some …

why did so many buildings collapse in Venezuela’s double earthquake?

why did so many buildings collapse in Venezuela’s double earthquake?

Published by skeptic

More than 500 people have been killed in Venezuela following powerful back-to-back earthquakes, with many more injured. Rescue teams have also been trying to locate people trapped in collapsed buildings. Here, Raffaele De Risi, associate professor in civil engineering at the University of Bristol, answered our questions about the role building design may have played in the disaster. Venezuela is in an active seismic zone. Why do you think there have been so many devastating building collapses? Indeed, Venezuela is a seismically active country. Hazard levels can easily be checked on several websites, such as the Global Seismic Hazard Map from the Global Earthquake Model Foundation. The number of building collapses is unfortunately linked to several factors rather than a single one: these range from the age and construction type of the buildings to their level of maintenance, to local soil amplification (when seismic waves pass from hard bedrock into softer surface soils), and proximity to the source. In addition, both events were shallow (the mainshock particularly so), which further contributes to such extensive devastation. …

Why Venezuela’s Second Earthquake Was So Damaging to Buildings

Why Venezuela’s Second Earthquake Was So Damaging to Buildings

Published by skeptic

Verónica Cañas barely had time to grab her 6-year-old son and put on her shoes before running out of her apartment in Caracas. As she ran down the stairs, the walls began to crack and part of the facade started to crumble. A few kilometers away in Altamira, 50-year-old Eduardo Burger watched as one building swayed while another fell apart. Neither of them knew that this was not just a single terrible earthquake but instead a rare phenomenon. On June 24, Venezuela experienced a seismic doublet that saw earthquakes of magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 occur just 39 seconds apart. The first tremor occurred with its epicenter in Yaracuy. Just a few seconds later, an even more intense earthquake shook the same region again. Both occurred at a shallow depth of between 10 and 20 kilometers (6 and 12 miles), which caused the energy to reach the surface with greater intensity and allowed the seismic waves to be felt as far away as Colombia, northern Brazil, and several Caribbean islands such as Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. …

Panic at major airport as buildings collapse after huge earthquake | World | News

Panic at major airport as buildings collapse after huge earthquake | World | News

Published by Sam Flores

The US Geological Survey confirmed the first earthquake registered a magnitude of 7.1, with its epicentre located west of the community of Morón, situated along the country’s Caribbean coast, approximately 104 miles west of Caracas. The quake struck at a depth of eight miles. Just minutes later, the USGS reported an even more powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake had hit the same region, at a depth of six miles, with its epicentre 10 miles southwest of Morón. Videos circulating across social media captured scenes of chaos at an airport near the Venezuelan capital in the aftermath of the twin earthquakes, with damage reported at Simon Bolivar Airport in Maiquetia. Structural collapses have since been reported across several districts of Caracas, including the municipality of Naguanagua, while widespread internet and mobile network outages have also been recorded throughout the affected areas. Social media reports suggest that people remain trapped beneath the rubble of collapsed buildings in Falcón, Tucacas and the Los Palos Grandes district of Caracas, where search and rescue teams are understood to have launched operations following …