Look at this. Very closely. What do you see?
You see foot thick concrete, and no rebar to brace it. Thankfully, not everything there was built like this road apparently was, but the fact that anyone would consider laying down concrete without a bit of steel (in one of China's chief steelmaking regions) speaks volumes about how things were (sadly) done there.
And yes, rebar alone would not have prevented all of this tragedy--earthquake zone architecture is more sophisticated than that--but the lack of it in certain places speaks volumes about a commitment (or lack thereof) to basic building codes.
Podcast #1047: The Roman Caesars’ Guide to Ruling
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The Roman caesars were the rulers of the Roman Empire, beginning in 27 BC
with Julius Caesar’s heir Augustus, from whom subsequent caesars took their
nam...
10 hours ago
2 comments:
...or the perverse incentives inherent in centrally planned economies, under which direct supervision I'm guaranteeing this road was built.
Every private (or semi-private, as the govt. can't keep its hands out of much) building being put together now in the boom is using more sophisticated construction methods, I'm certain.
It's actually still a struggle--my company does a lot of business over there, and getting people who are used to "sliding by" with government corruption tend to require a bit of persuasion to do things as basic as using ordinary electrical codes. I dare suggest that giving the customer what he asks for, and basic standards of craftsmanship, are learned behaviors, not innate.
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