Snow, you are making the old mistake of confusing correlation with causation. It's a common, actually normal, mistake. <In Haiti, by contrast, there is no building code. >
There is a building code in New Zealand and the government has got a financial catastrophe on its hands as a result and so have hordes of New Zealanders who put their trust in the stupid government authorities to ensure construction was sound.
Ask Google, or Bing, about "leaky buildings".
There is no law in Haiti to stop people building earthquake and hurricane resistant houses.
In Wellington, when we lived there, I had no law telling me I had to do it, but I took out a chimney because of the earthquake hazard. I didn't want to have a chimney landing in our living room fireplace setting fire to the house with us possibly trapped inside. Also, contrary to official instructions, my instructions to the family were to flee outdoors at the first hint of shaking. Where we lived, there was nothing outside to fall on us. Official instructions are to hide under tables or in doorways.
I also took out the hot water cylinder which had a wetback running off the chimney [it was high up and not stable].
A quick Google search and sure enough - still giving false instructions: <Drop, take cover, and hold on. Move only a short distance to a nearby safe place. Stay indoors until the shaking stops and you're sure it's safe to go outside. Stay away from windows, chimneys, and shelves containing heavy objects.
If you're in bed, hold on and stay there, and protect your head and body with a pillow and blankets.> gns.cri.nz
At the laboratory [which I became in charge of as a line manager [the manager reporting to me]] I told them to forget the official instructions to hide under the desks and tables and to run outside. Outside, there was nothing but sky. The building was fairly old and dodgy and probably not at all earthquake resistant. I also pointed out to them that being stuck inside with flaming phosphorus falling off the shelves could be detrimental to their health. And, by the way, the shelves should all have edges to stop things just sliding straight off onto the floor with minor shaking. That would require a slight lift to get it over the edge, but I guessed it was worth it. In a big earthquake, it would be such a mess it would be total destruction anyway so more resistance that shelf edges wouldn't be worth the effort [such as building cupboard doors on everything - which for all I know they probably require now].
It was pretty obvious that the modern house construction methods were going to leak - having watched them building them around the place. But the building standards and inspectors and authorities all signed off on them. Now there's a financial catastrophe
Do you really need me to explain to you why Haiti is such a mess? It has nothing to do with too many private property rights, enforced contracts, police and security, freedom and self-determination.
Mqurice |
