Structural safety

Regardless of the technical reason a dam fails, there’s always a bigger story behind it. These stories of some of humanity’s most notable dam disasters all offer lessons for today.

This checklist aims to facilitate a robust approach to reviewing fire safety provisions in building and/or fire regulations by providing a discussion of fundamental fire safety components of building and/or fire regulations.

The quake, which has killed thousands, was unusually large for Morocco and struck a region where most buildings are not earthquake-resilient.

Traditional construction methods were no match for the earthquake that rocked Morocco on Friday night, an engineering expert says, and the area will continue to see such devastation unless updated building techniques are adopted.

The recent events in Morocco and Turkey serve as a stark reminder there are much more pressing needs – particularly in regions with limited economic growth and an insufficient enforcement of standards.

This study uses mechanical analysis based on pushover to propose a physical vulnerability assessment model of buildings in the earthquake-debris flow disaster chain to assess the vulnerability of buildings in Beichuan County, China.

Earthquakes cannot be predicted, even with the current knowledge in seismology. What seismologists can do is establish the areas in which earthquakes are most likely to occur, even establish the probability of their occurrence and its uncertainty.

Learn about the Vanuatu house that sheltered people through two of the worst cyclones in recent history — and it’s not the first time it has helped to saved lives.