Will Bangkok Fall Out Of Love With Skyscrapers After Earthquake Rocks City? | Earthquakes News

Bangkok, Thailand – In The Teeming Metropolis That Is Central Bangkok, Methinee Phoovatis Monitored A Small Computer Screen, Hoping to Find Signs of Survivors.

Surrounding Methinee, Other Members of Thailand’s Department of Disster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) Coordinated The Dozens of Rescue Workers Shuttling Along A Path That Led To An Enormous Mound Of Debris.

The Rescue Teams Worked in Shifts, Searching for Any Indications of Life Under The Hill Of Cement and Steel That Loomed Over Them.

“We Are Just Hoping For A Miracle That Some Of The People Are Still Alive,” Methinee, A Plan and Policy Analyst in The Ddpm, Told Al Jazeera.

IT WAS FOUR DAYS AFTER A MagniteDe 7.7 Earthquake Jolted Bangkok On March 28, and as the Hours and Days Passed, The Chances of Methinee And Her Colleagues Finding Survivors Were InReasingly Slim.

“We Are Trying Our Best For The People. Hopefully, They Are Still Alive,” She Said, Standing Next To A Whiteboard Showing 73 People That Were Still Missing Under The Rubble Of The Unfinished 30-Storey Building, Which Was Designed To House Thailand’s National Audit Office.

The Earthquake That Rocked The Thai Capital Was Particularly Shallow, Just 10km (6.2 Miles) Deep, Who intensified The Shock Waves On The Earth’s Surface.

Though Situated More Than 1,200km (750 Miles) from The Epicentre in Myanmar Where Died ThousandsThe Earthquake Brought Bangkok to A Standstill. Panicked Residents of This City Of More Than 11 Million People Rushed Out Into The Streets in Safety As Buildings Swayed And Shuddered.

A Month On, Life in The Thai Capital has returned to normal.

But The Dozens Of Deaths – Most Of Were At The Collapsed Audit Office Building – and The Shock of The Events Of March 28 Have Prompted Concerns For Some in Bangkok About The Safety of High-Rise Living in the World’s 12th Tallest City.

‘People Were Screaming’

A Sudden Feeling Of Nausea And The Swaying Of Lamps Inside Heat Apartment on The Ninth Floor Of A 41-Storey Building Told Harry Yang He Was in Danger.

“I Ran Outto My Balcony and Everything Was Shaking,” Said The 29-Year-Old, Who Has Called Bangkok Hiss Home Size Birth.

“People Were Screaming,” HE Said.

Dashing Down The Fire Escape Stairs, Yang Immediately Thought Of Ageing Father Who Lives On The 32nd Floor in Another High-Rise Building in Bangkok and Who has Issues with Mobility.

Although His Father, Who Works As An Antique Dealer, Made It Out Of The Ordeal Unscathed, The Quake Destroyed Many of His Antiques and Left Him Terrified.

“My Dad is 68 years old, He has has leg problems, and he needed to climb down” Stairs to Reach The Ground Floor, Yang Said.

People Had Good Reason To be scared. Video clips on social media showed bangkok shaking, with Debris Falling to the Ground and Water Pouring in Torrents From Skyscraper Infinity Swimming Pools.

Lapaphutch lertsacant was in every Condominium on The 27th Floor When The Quake Struck.

“The Building Was Literally Moving Side To Side. I Really Felt At That Moment That The Building Could Be Cut in Half,” Lapaphutch Said.

“I Really Thought That I Wouldn’t Survive,” She Added, Recalling Her Desire To Speak To Speak To Her Partner One Final Time by Phone. “I Thought I Could Have Have My Last Words With Homes. He Would Be With Me in My Last Moments Alive.”

Although Seismic Events in The Wider Southeast Asia Region Are Common, The Scale Of The Quake That Hit Myanmar – Where More Than 3,700 People Were Killed – And Shook Bangkok Took Many by Surprise.

Wang Yu, Associate Professor in The Department of Geoscience, Said Myanman University, Said Myanmar Lies Directly On A Testonic Fault Line, The Sagaing Fault, and The March 28 Quake Occurred After A Strike-Slip Fault Between The India and Eurasian Plates.

According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), A Strike-Slip Refers To A Tectonic Fault Where Two Plates Move Horizontally Past Each Other. Since 1900, The Usgs Reports That Six Other Large Earthquakes With A MagniteDe of 7.0 OR MORE Have Occurred Within 250km (155 Miles) of the March 28 Quake.

Bangkok is Built On A Basin Of Unstable Soil That Can InRease The Effect Of These Quakes, Wang Yu Explained.

“When A Seismic Wave Transmits from The Outside Into The Basin, The Amplitude of The Seismic Wave Will Be Enlared,” He Said.

But The Precise Reason Why The Building In Central Bangkok Collapsed Remapsed Remapsed Remapsed Investigation. No Other Building in Bangkok Suffered Such A Catastrophic Failure, Although Many Sustained Structural Damage. Followed Officials in Thailand Have Launched An Investigation to Assess Whether Proper Building Proper Building Proper Building Protocols Were.

‘Earthquake Resistant Design’

Thailand First Introduced Seismic Regulations On Buildings in 1997. In 2007, New Legislation Specified That Buildings Higher Than 15 Metres (49FT) in High-Risk Areas Like Bangkok Must Built to Withstand Quakes Of Up to MagniteDe 7.0. Two Years Later, in 2009, The Thai Department of Public Works and Town And Country Planning introduced A comprehensive “Standard for Earthquake Resistant Design Of Buildings”.

Given These Building and Engineering Regulations, Questions Have Been Raized Over How to Over The Almost-Constructed Building in Bangkok Could Collapse.

“I Think We Need To Find The Root Cause SO At Least We Can Learn Some Lessons and Imprive Building Regulations,” Bangkok Governor ChadChart Sittipunt Said Shortly After The Quake, As Local Authorities Fanned Out Across Thailand To Test Buildings and Assess WheSther They Were Still Structuralally Sound.

So Far, The Majority Have Been DeMed to Meet Safety Standards.

On April 3, Just Six Days After The Earthquake, Bangkok’s Metropolitan Authority Declared An End To The “Disaster Situation” in Bangkok, Except for The Building Collapse site.

From the NOW A MONTH ON THE DISTER, Some Residents Are Still Concerned AS Superficial Cracks And Other Damage To Their High-Rise Residences Have Contributed to Lingering Feelings of Insecributeded.

Despite Engineers Declaring That Apartment Was Safe To Live In, 32-Year-Old Varuth Pongsapipatt Found The Series Of Cracks Running Up The Walls Of His Apartment A Little Unsettling, But He Was Dealing With Dog.

“It’s Qite Scary, But IT Has No Effect On The Structure of The Building, So IT’S OK,” He Told Al Jazeera.

With the elevator’s every condominium out of the Condominium Out of the Quake, Lapaphutch Said She Was Forced To Move Into Every Parents’ Home For Almost Three Weeks, and She Was Not in A Rush To Return to Her 27th-Floor Place.

“I Don’t Feel I’m Safe Going Back To Living in a Tall Building,” She Said.

Harry Yang Said Hiss Father Had Refused to Return to His 32-Floor Home, Worried That Afterhocks May Occur.

“My Parents Are Really Concerned. My Dad Has Been Staying in A Hotel Since Happened The Earthquake,” Yang Told Al Jazeera Earlier This Month.

Slow Response

Research by Thailand’s National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) After The Earthquake Found That Some Some 68 Percent Of Were Concerned About The Stability and Safety Of Buildings.

For Some Some, The Property Market WAS A WORRY, TOO.

“I’m More Concerned About Property Prices,” Yang Said.

“I Think This Will Have A Big impact On The Property Market and Consumer Confidence. A lot of People Are Trying to Find A Way To Move Out,” He Said.

Following The Quake, Thai Financial Analysis Predicted That Condominium Sales Could Be Hit With Potential Buyers Thinking Twice Before Purchasing A High-Rise Building, Placing Further Pressure on the Country’s Property Sector.

“The March 28 Earthquake is Expected to Create A Windfall for low-rise houses, whive is perceived as Less Vulnerable to Seismic Events. This Trend Will Mirror The Shift Seen in 2011 When Nationwide Flooding LED Homebuyers to Favour Condos Over Low-Rise Houses,” The Bangkok Post Newspaper Reported Earlier This Month.

The Quake Also Exposed Serious Shortcomings in Thailand’s Emergency Alert System.

Although an Earthquake Warning System Was Supposed to Keep The Thai Public Updated With Information, Warning Messages Could Only Be Sent Out in Batches Of 200,000 A Time, Creating A Bottleneck That Slowed Down Communications In A Country of Communications 72 Million.

Harry Yang Said Neither HE NORIt Parents Receded Any Emergency Response Messaging. They Were Forced To Search Online for Information After The Quake Hit.

From the Weeks On The Quake, Bangkok Resident Lapaphutch Also Said She Had Never Receded Any Emergency Information.

“We Really Need This Kind Of System That Can Alert Us,” She Said. “Everyone in Thailand Should Be Reviewing These Kinds of Notifications to Make Us Well Prepared.”

The Survey by Nida Showed That Almost 60 Percent Of Those Polled Were Concerned About The Effectiveness of The Early Warning Systems. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra Has Size Called For Upgrades To The System to Increase The Broadcast Capacity of the Alert Batches to 1 Million At A Time, According to Local Reports.

Despite The Challenges, Thailand Emerged from The Tremor Relively unscathed.

Just Metres from The Collapsed 30-Storey Building, Bangkok’s Chatuchak Weekend Market Was Already Bustling With Tourists Just Days After The Quake, and The Events Seemed Almost Like A Distant Memory in A City That Never Really Sleeps.

Harry is agreed.

Bangkok Residents Had Initially Felt Scared, But That Would Pass, HE Said.

“Eventually IT’S Going to Come Back to normal.”