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Displaying 15 of about 24 resultsEngineers from Heriot-Watt’s Institute for Infrastructure and Environment have designed a ‘sacrificial device’ for buildings that will absorb the impact of earthquakes or blasts, preventing collapse and reducing the damage and residual drifts that can render buildings uninhabitable.
Current European ‘earthquake-proof’ buildings were designed to prevent…
By Elif Ayhan, Artessa Saldivar-Sali and Alanna Simpson
“It’s not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” This was the response given by Sir Edmond Hillary when asked how he and his companion Tenzing Norgay became the first to summit Mt Everest, when so many before had failed. He believed we could all overcome our biggest challenge simply by deciding…
Across the world, severe earthquakes regularly shake entire regions. More than two billion people live in danger zones – many of them in structures not built to withstand an earthquake. Together with partners from industry, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research WKI are developing building materials designed to prevent buildings from…
By Laura Bassett
NEW ORLEANS ― Twelve years after Hurricane Katrina became the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, New Orleans is still struggling with infrastructure issues that make it difficult to stave off floods. As the city scrambles to fix its broken water pumps for the remnants of Hurricane Harvey, engineers are working with the Dutch gover…
The increasing need to protect civilian infrastructure and industrial facilities against unintentional loads arising from accidental impact and explosion events as well as a terrorist attack is reflected in the sustained interest in the SUSI meetings over three decades. While advances have been made over this period, nevertheless many challenges remain,…
World renowned building science centre BRE has developed the ‘Resilient House’ to show how practical measures can be installed in a home to prevent flood water entering a property.
These simple solutions include:
flood resistant doors and windows
water resilient walls and insulation
a resilient kitchen with moveable kitchen units;
floor and wall…
CANCUN, Mexico, 25 May 2017 – Efforts to reduce disaster death tolls in Portugal, Iran, Brazil and Fiji have been honoured by an international award from the United Nations and Japan’s Nippon Foundation.
Issued at the 2017 Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction, the biennial Sasakawa Award recognised projects that have made a substantial contribut…
By David Sislen, Alanna Simpson and Yann Kerblat
Did you know that, in 1755, Portugal suffered a catastrophic disaster so severe that it cast a long shadow over politics, religion, philosophy, and science?
During an All Saints’ Day mass in Lisbon in that fateful year, an 8.5-magnitude earthquake collapsed cathedrals, triggered a 20-foot tsun…
By Philippa Garson
As Hurricane Irma whipped its way through the Caribbean and headed for Florida, its catastrophic impacts further east put into stark relief the vulnerability of the region’s poor island communities to increasingly fierce and frequent weather events.
The toll the record-breaking storm will take on Florida remains to be seen, but the…
Experts in Italy are planning to build a seismic resistance museum for the artistic and cultural treasures of Florence following the earthquake that shook the country last year and caused the death of nearly 300 people as well as the destruction of many cultural values including the 14th century St. Benedict Basilica in Norcia.
According to an article…
Location
Preston
Description
MSc Fire Safety Engineering is concerned with the study of fire development and prevention and the means by which its consequence may be reduced to a minimum in human, environmental and financial terms. This postgraduate degree emphasises Fire Safety Engineering in the context of buildings and infrastructure. This involve…
Despite an increasing global focus on the issue of school safety, with few exceptions, governments and development partners have not managed to address the problem at scale. By providing technical assistance in the context of planned and ongoing investments in school infrastructure, the Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) builds strong government ow…
By Sophie Knight
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Along with the explosion of the motorcar in the early 20th century came paved surfaces. Rainwater – instead of being sucked up by plants, evaporating, or filtering through the ground back to rivers and lakes – was suddenly forced to slide over pavements and roads into drains, pipes and sewers.
Their maximum capacities are based…
When a natural disaster hits an SOS Children’s Village, the ability of its infrastructure to resist the forces of nature is crucial to keep the children and staff safe. That no fatalities due to natural disaster have been reported in the history of the organisation is testimony to the construction standards it maintains.
On 8 November 2013, Super Typho…
ISTANBUL, Turkey, 6 April 2017 – The lamp in the classroom begins to sway. The desks start to shake. If you’ve never faced an earthquake, Turkey’s AFAD national disaster management authority can give you a taste.
“This is based on real experiences,” said Mr. Zekeriya Ozturk, information officer for AFAD’s simulator truck, at the European Forum for Disa…