Earthquakes themselves kill very few people, despite popular movie images of the earth suddenly opening up huge crevices that swallow lots of people. Poorly constructed buildings, however, routinely kill many people. 99% of those deaths are in poor countries, like Haiti or India, which lack earthquake resistance know-how, strict building codes (like those that have been in place in California and Japan for decades) and/or a non-corrupt government to enforce those codes.
And, oh, yes, money. That’s particularly important in developing countries where very few people have the funds to make their new homes earthquake or storm resistant, once the international recovery funds dry up.
Some good news, reports earthquake engineer and founder of Build Change, Elisabeth Hausler, Ph.D., is that “in a place like Haiti, building a house to withstand an earthquake can also help it to withstand a hurricane, particularly by tying the roof down to prevent it from flying off in strong winds. For earthquake-resistant design, the roof is often tied to the walls to provide some kind of bracing effect for the walls.
When India was devastated by a January 26, 2001 quake that killed well over 20,000 people, Hausler was halfway through a civil engineering Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley. At the same time, she was undergoing an existential crisis: how could she do something truly meaningful with her training? How she turned that question into Build Change, which helps create safer housing in developing countries, is a textbook example of how the mind of a visionary works. Continue reading →
