Вы услышите рассказ инженера о том, как сделать дома устойчивыми к землетрясениям. В следующих заданиях выберите правильный ответ.
1. Fatalities from earthquakes are the result of
1) earthquake-resistant housing.
2) improper construction.
3) man-made problems.
2. The narrator first thought about this problem
1) when she was still at school. .
2) while studying at a university.
3) after she had graduated from university
3. The goal of ‘Build Change’ is
1) to counter the negative effects of earthquakes.
2) to improve housing construction in developed countries.
3) to train builders.
4. You can double the strength of the wall if the bricks are
1) porous.
2) dry.
3) wet.
5. Houses are more earthquake-resistant if they are built of
1) stone.
2) wood.
3) concrete.
6. The mistake of Chinese builders was that they
1) built the walls before the columns.
2) built the columns before the walls.
3) didn’t join the columns and the walls.
7. Retrofitting is
1) constructing modern buildings.
2) modification of existing buildings.
3) renovating old buildings.
1 – 2
2 – 2
3 – 1
4 – 3
5 – 2
6 – 3
7 – 2
I work for a non-profit organisation which designs and helps to build earthquake-resistant housing in developing countries. We live in an uncertain world where natural calamities like earthquakes cause more havoc than they did before. However, I strongly believe that it’s not earthquakes that kill people but poorly built buildings. Inspecting the aftermath of earthquakes throughout the developing world, I’ve seen a lot of collapsed buildings that were made of unreinforced masonry. Most of the people that died during these earthquakes were killed because of such poorly constructed buildings. Fatalities from earthquakes are a man-made problem so there has to be a man-made solution.
I was halfway through graduate school studying to be an earthquake engineer when I first thought of this problem. Then the 11th of September happened, and I was motivated to do something good for the world. I went to Gujarat, India, and there I saw horrible loss of life and destruction due to collapsed buildings in the aftermath of a massive earthquake. Prior to that I had worked as a brick mason and I thought maybe there was something I could do to help.
So, in 2004, I founded the organisation ‘Build Change’, which designs earthquake-resistant houses and trains builders, homeowners, engineers, and government officials to build them. Our aim is to greatly reduce deaths, injuries, and economic losses from earthquakes in developing countries. Typically, after an earthquake, non-governmental organisations import building materials and build new homes without putting in place models that create long-term change. We’re training local people, using local materials and working with government agencies to establish safer and lasting building standards.
After the 2007 earthquake in Sumatra, we worked with over 600 families. When we left the area, there was another earthquake in the same place, and none of the houses that we had helped rebuild had any damage. We revisited the villages after about six months, and others were building houses using techniques that we’d taught.
There are some inexpensive techniques that can be used to make a building earthquake-proof. In Indonesia, for example, the brick walls of many houses are not very strong. It is hot there and the bricks are very porous, so if they are laid when they are dry, they absorb the moisture from the mortar and will not stick together. Just by soaking the bricks in water before building a wall you can double its strength.
In Western Sumatra, Indonesia, some homeowners have seen their brick houses collapse in one, two or even three earthquakes and so they are shifting back to timber-based homes that are more earthquake-resistant. These are actually cheaper and easier to build too.
Where we have worked in China, builders were trying to use a method called confined masonry to construct stronger buildings: masonry walls are confined by reinforced concrete beams and columns. This helps hold the bricks in place during an earthquake. But they were not doing it correctly and in many cases there was no connection between the masonry walls and columns. Simple changes to the sequence of construction, like building the walls before the columns, can make a big difference to the building’s strength.
We’ve just finished our first training programme with government engineers in Haiti on retrofitting buildings. Until now, we have only worked on new construction projects but retrofitting is something that can be implemented in a region before an earthquake occurs. The goal is not a code compliant building by US standards, but a building that is not likely to collapse in another major earthquake. Using locally available materials, engineers can assist the homeowners to build better buildings that are culturally appropriate.
