7.5 earthquake in Mexico

[tykes]

Good to know everybody is ok. My family and myself we're all are fine too, though this was a strong and scary one. Here in my hometown it was felt very violently because the epicentrum was very near from here.

Fortunately there is no major damages, just some cracks in buildings and in a couple of bridges.

 

[H-KQGE]

To any members who live near or know the affected areas, are all major buildings earthquake-proof or is it just some places? I was watching a broadcast (uk) when the earthquake first hit (Mexico's last one) with a journalist in Mexico who didn't seem sure either way.

 

[Yas]

Glad nobody was in that swimming pool!

http://<iframe width="560" height="...SI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Mexico city 7.2º Richter scale earthquake at a pool. Happened at the high performance athlete centre.

That's pretty scary! :/

 

[adam7117]

That was a strong earthquake - glad you all are OK. We appear to have had quite of few of these strong tremors lately. Oh dear...

Here's a current global earthquake map for the last 14 days. It's a bit busy but interesting nonetheless. The colour coding goes from white to purple with white being the oldest and purple being the current erthquakes that just happened. The largest circles are magnitude 7 - that is a lot in a fortnight!

 

[mabar]

To any members who live near or know the affected areas, are all major buildings earthquake-proof or is it just some places? I was watching a broadcast (uk) when the earthquake first hit (Mexico's last one) with a journalist in Mexico who didn't seem sure either way.

I do not know either, there more than 500 damage houses/buildings in Guerrero state. There are also reports from damage buildings in other states, including Mexico City. There are many factors, variables. In many cases, I assume, is because there are either too old or too new, many new houses are cheap, for low income families, or there are low quality constructed. In Mexico City after the 1985 earthquake that killed around 9k people -in the official version- construction standards were modified specially for buildings, to make them more resistant, need to have certain quality standards, that is the theory.

For example, where I work the building is from 1934, after the 1985 earthquake the building was reinforced, and/or business owners reinforced their own store. We noticed, fortunately that products,shelfs were not down/broken, and had not seen any new visible damage. It was closed due to past "Holy days".

At the apartment I recently moved, the building is new, low income, is small and were given with the basic, the final details are of low income standard and/or I was used to better ones, what I heard from construction workers is that the construction company used good quality materials and/or -here is where we come to variables, the official price was low, but it rised the price to the appreciation factor, we (neighboors) have been checking things on the construction and other stuff, not due the earthquake per se, but I found yesterday night a new water leak in the kitchen that I think it came after the earthquake, had not seen it before. And just reported to the construction company.

Here is a report in damages from the earthquake, (in spanish) _http://es.earthquake-report.com/2014/04/18/massive-earthquake-guerrero-mexico-on-april-18-2014/

 

[H-KQGE]

Thanks mabar. Yes there are several variables that complicate the issue of safety. What I found most troubling is the amount of money that is siphoned out of the country on a regular basis. You would think that there would be enough sensible politicians to see the amount of work necessary for fortifying most parts of the country. Other parts considered poorer might be somewhat inaccessible or the areas unstable because of soft sand soil. But despite any wishful thinking, I still think that more can be done across the board rather than spending huge sums on something such as the Torre Mayor building. http://www.scotforge.com/sf_articles_torremayor.htm

Of course there's the corruption of basically everything, & the problem of cartels who've expanded into oil theft & mining... http://www.dailynews.com/general-news/20131129/mexico-drug-cartels-make-money-exporting-stolen-iron-ore-to-china never mind the drugs trade & the banks. A fire has been lit under the country & it's threatening to envelope everything. For anyone interested, here's some info dotted around..

Related finance

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Mexico

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-29/banks-financing-mexico-s-drug-cartels-admitted-in-wells-fargo-s-u-s-deal.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/702a64a6-d25e-11e1-ac21-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zfrwjjbi

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/americas/mexico-targets-gang-that-infiltrated-the-mining-industry.html?referrer=

Other related (mining etc)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/earthquake-resistant-buildings1.htm

http://imaginationstationtoledo.org/content/2011/03/can-you-build-an-earthquake-proof-building/

http://earthquake-report.com/2013/06/01/worldwide-landslide-report/

 

[mabar]

I still think that more can be done across the board rather than spending huge sums on something such as the Torre Mayor building. http://www.scotforge.com/sf_articles_torremayor.htm

I do not longer think in what it can be done rather than X ad infinitum.

Here, the "Suavicrema" a brand of soft cream cookie bar named for the "Estela de Luz" (Pillar of Light) _http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estela_de_Luz, a some sort of monument to commemorate Mexico's Bicentenary of Independence, the most peeep! monument of peep and etc ...!!, full of corruption and other critters from the last six-year presidential term of office. It costs around 1000 million of pesos=85 millions of dolars, waay tooo much money!, for that??!! It resisted from this earthquake.

 

[H-KQGE]

I had to laugh at that picture. Some sts pillars of light thing going on there.

criticism: The Estela de Luz was criticized for being built late for the main ceremonies and for exceeding the estimated costs. Officials noted that the structure needed to be reinforced against earthquakes, similarly to that of the Torre Mayor. This reinforcement, coupled with conflicts between the architect and the construction company, were major reasons for the additional time and expense.

It might sound like a shambles, but this seems to me to be openly mocking people. How can making a large public structure earthquake proof in a country so susceptible not be part of the original estimates? That's not slack, that's deliberate. And it's not even practical, it's just a lump of quartz "representing the best combination of Mexico's past $ future." The whole thing sounds like a classic money siphoning maneuver.

 

[mabar]

How can making a large public structure earthquake proof in a country so susceptible not be part of the original estimates?

That's how this/that/those/these psycopathic governments works, it was reported also a crack in the second floor of the Periférico San Antonio _http://www.excelsior.com.mx/comunidad/2014/04/18/954664 (spanish), the official version is, that the structure was not affected, just the "make up", well... I do not believe it that much.

It would not been seen well to the actual government of the city, from the same political party from the last one, had been recently criticized from the "conflict" of the failures in 12th line of the subway -nowadays- closed for the time being _http://thenews.com.mx/index.php/mexico-articulos/20792-committeeswillprobeoceanografiaandmetro (english), last thing I heard was that the trains did not compete/match with the railroads???? ... we are not talking about blocks for kids??? --again, corruption and other critters as well.

 

[SMM]

Good to know you are all okay!

 

[Gaolea]

Yeah! has been little scary, but yam! im fine thank you :3