Q: Japan seems to have much damage and many casualties from earthquakes. They are in an earthquake zone, but they don’t seem to have building codes that reflect that danger. California does, so why don’t they?
—Fred Scanling, Big Canoe
A: Japan has some of the most stringent seismic codes in the world, and in 2013, revised a previous law to ensure older buildings are brought up to date to meet the country's 1981 Building Standards Law.
The New York Times called Japan “the best-prepared country in the world for the twin disasters of earthquake and tsunami” shortly after the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake, the strongest to hit Japan since at least 1900.
That earthquake, which registered a 9.0 and generated a tsunami that included waves up to 130 feet high, proved that the country’s building codes are sufficient, the Financial Times reported in 2015.
Most of the “damage occurred to structures built under the prior 1950 law,” the paper wrote, and more than 90 percent of the deaths were attributed to the tsunami, which traveled up to 6 miles inland.
Japan’s goal by the end of 2015 was to have 90 percent of the country’s buildings to meet the 1981 code and a revision added after a 1995 earthquake.
Japan has constructed taller buildings on “rubber or fluid-filled shock absorbers,” which move laterally, the Washington Post reported in 2011.
“The Japanese are at the forefront of seismic technology,” Eduardo Kausel, a engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Post in 2011.
Andy Johnston with Fast Copy News Service wrote this column. Do you have a question? We’ll try to get the answer. Call 404-222-2002 or email q&a@ajc.com (include name, phone and city).
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