Ever Felt A Quake In Los?

[penzman]

I was curious about seismic activity in Thailand and found information on quakes that occured in 1912, 1983 and 1995. Has anyone ever experienced a quake in LOS and was it in 83 or 95 or else?

If you answer 1912 please be advised that all that shaking is not coming from the ground......... your fault (pun)

[george]

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2670

[Khutan]

I have also been curious on the same subject. THere seems to be that big earthquake place near where I live in Bang-Na, next door to the Met Bureau.

[Guest IT Manager]

Yes. It was quite frightening for a minute while we worked out what had happened.

Apart from that, there have been occasions when the Earth moved for me, baby, since I have been here.

[davidm]

Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai are the most susceptible. SOme tremors even cause structural damage. Kanchanaburi gets a few tremors near the Burmese border.

Around 1990, an independent study was carried out by some international organisation on the subject of earthquakes in Thailand and potential outcomes. The study concluded that while Bangkok was not in a high risk zone, the effects of even a moderate quake hitting the Thai capital would be catostrphic. As you probably know, Bangkok is built on a swamp. This is the worst possible type of land to receive a quake as there are no rocks to bind everything together. Compounding the problem is that very few buildings in Bangkok have deep foundations. Probably none of the tall buildings are designed to withstand earthquakes. The study concluded that eventually, i.e. might take more than a century to happen or could be next week, a quake will hit the city and just about every structure would collapse. There could be millions of casualties. This hasn't stopped me from living in Bangkok, though.

Another study, conducted by the relevant Thai agency in the mid 1990s concluded that a fairly strong quake was overdue in an area of Kanchanaburi where several major dams have been built. It also stated the dams were not strong enough to cope. Everything downstream, including the provincial capital, would be severely affected. Predicting earthquakes is not a very reliable science, but who knows? Maybe, one days these reports will turn out to be right.

[KevinN]

I used to notice a lot of quakes in BKK and south back in the later 1960s and 70s and was always picking myself up from the ground as they made it hard to walk,but then since I got sober there seems to be a lessening of seismic activity here,but maybe it is just that I do not fool around there anymore.

[eric1000]

I was curious about seismic activity in Thailand and found information on quakes that occured in 1912, 1983 and 1995. Has anyone ever experienced a quake in LOS and was it in 83 or 95 or else?

If you answer 1912 please be advised that all that shaking is not coming from the ground......... your fault (pun)

not uncommon in Nong Khai district

minor tremors

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Yes. It was quite frightening for a minute while we worked out what had happened.

Apart from that, there have been occasions when the Earth moved for me, baby, since I have been here.

Same same here IT... the earth has moved... and that red Oz medicine can also give cause to certain equilibrium problems too.

[Up2U]

Watch for the next denial from the PM's office.

There are officially no earthquakes in Thailand, it is perfectly safe for tourists.

The buildings that fell down last week were actually designed to do so, in order to provide another tourist attraction - this was nothing to do with the avian 'flu, which has now been eliminated o behalf of the tourist industry.

[cdnvic]

Just this past week in Chang Mai they've been talking about having to do some repairs at Doi Suthep that are the result of a tremor a few weeks ago. The building across from ours has structural cracks that remind me of some of the older buildings in Wellington and Vancouver that cracked during small quakes.

Actually, the gunshots two sois over the past few nights worry me more...

cv

[cdnvic]

Ooops...

That tremor was a few years ago.. not weeks.

[Guest IT Manager]

Yes. It was quite frightening for a minute while we worked out what had happened.

Apart from that, there have been occasions when the Earth moved for me, baby, since I have been here.

Same same here IT... the earth has moved... and that red Oz medicine can also give cause to certain equilibrium problems too.

Doc, I have told you a million tmes.. it isn't an equilibrium issue. You were rolling over drunk again.

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Yes. It was quite frightening for a minute while we worked out what had happened.

Apart from that, there have been occasions when the Earth moved for me, baby, since I have been here.

Same same here IT... the earth has moved... and that red Oz medicine can also give cause to certain equilibrium problems too.

Doc, I have told you a million tmes.. it isn't an equilibrium issue. You were rolling over drunk again.

Jeez IT ... a weak shandy on a hot day....and I am in strife.

[astral]

There is a seismology station at the foot of Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai

Back in 1988 I saw the lamp swaying in my house in Bangkok, one evening.

The next day there was report in the newspaper of a quake in China.

I guess the wave set the mud of Bangkok trembling.

[NedKelly]

Mate of mine told me recently about the condo's he lives in. We were discussing the potential of the building and he said that he felt a quake some time back that actually rolled him out of bed inthemiddle of the night. He is onthe 20 somethingth floor and said it was frightening.

Afterwards he said nothing worked properly again. He went to work one day and came home to find the door wide open. The door jam had twisted making it impossible to lock the door.

I have watched from my house, the house next door being built over a period of some months and wondered how strong the foundations really are. It was all done by manpower, no machines used. They started by digging down to the mud......literally mud like really soft clay......thenthey would somehow sink a blue sewere pipe into it and then scoop out the mud to a depth of about 5 metres. After this they would stand a concrete octagonal post/pillar about 6" wide and 5-6 mertres long, up on top of the hole.......then all the workers would would a wooden plank at an angle from the ground to the top of the concrete pillar. they would allthen climb it and hold each other and in unisen would bounce up and down in rythm whilest chanting/humming so that the weight of them would force the pillar into the hole in the ground.

Each footing would have abourt 5 or 6 of these concrete pillars sunk into a small section mayb eone metrre square. A concrete slabwas then laid over it all and it would have been 1 metre square. The land is only about 8m x 10 m or so and inthat space they laid down maybe 12 of these 1 metre square footings. Seems pretty solid to me but the science is what worries me. Is it safe ? After all even at the depth they were digging, the earth was still soft mud.

[Insight]

Felt that one that originated in Myanmar in Sept 2003, but I do live on the 21st floor in Bangkok. A few things fell off some shelves, but that was the extent of it.

Here's the only active link I can find about it on the 'net:

http://quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/...e.RP0a_DSM.html

[Jeepz]

Think of that as living on ball bearings then, NedKelly. I can not speak to Thailand specifically, but I live in an earthquake area of North America. Basically it sounds like you are in some sort of sedimentary deposit, not bedrock, sitting on top of moisture or moist earth. A big one hits and all that turns into almost liquid that will transmit force easily.

Don't want to scare you or put some major worry in your mind. I work on fairly similar land every day (well, five out of seven). Managment assures us that it can handle a big one. Maybe, Maybe not. I hope to be retired in LOS before it happens.

Anyway, if you get too worried about it, revamp the house by adding a safe area. Personally I'd go for a bedroom, but whatever works. A good architect should be able to design a retro fit for one room that would make it a better place to be during a big quake.

But actually, is it really necessary? Kinda like wearing a parachute on a commercial jet. Yeah, they fall down, but not that often.

Jeepz

[lopburi3]

It was all done by manpower, no machines used.

If it is a new development or away from other structures they can and will use machines to pile drive but the cadence dance is much softer with structures nearby and what you want to see if you live next door. Kind of fun to watch them.

I have never felt any strong quake in Bangkok but we do have some that can be felt. The only time I rolled out of bed was a 6.5 which was only 10km away in northern Japan; but those buildings were built for it.

[cdnvic]

I've done a fair bit of seismic upgrading work in Canada and NZ, and though not in an engineering capacity, know enough of the basics to say this is not the place to be in a major quake.

- There is not enough steel in most buildings. The rebar you see on alot of multi-storie buildings is only suitable for single storie structures. Girders or beams to secure the floors and cross braces are absent. In a situation involving liquification of the subsoil, a building will often tilt, and without the girders, and cross braces the concrete pillars will likely collapse under a crossload they were never designed to withstand.

- The concrete aggregate is often too coarse, and inconsistant, therefor making fractures more likely to happen.

- Concrete walls are from what I've seen, not anchored well, if at all to the rest of the structure, making it highly likely they would either collapse into the building, or out onto the street.

- Floors, wooden or concrete, are often built solid into the walls, rather than being hung, which allows them to move during seismic activity, otherwise they simply buckle and snap, or act as levers that buckle exterior walls.

An architect we worked with once told me a few things about selecting a building in an earthquake zone. Here's the jist of what I remember...

- First floor is out, as it will be the first to collapse, especially if there is parking undernieth, and 2nd and 3rd are easiest to escape from. Top floors shake more the higher you go, enough to toss you off a balcony after about 20 stories (depending on size and type of quake). High floors are also very difficult to escape from, but if it's seafront property, they are safer in a tsunami.

- Wooden buildings generally do better, but suffer more from fires afterwards, especially if they are gas equipped. Girder steel/concrete is best of all, brick, or poorly reinforced cinderblock the worst.

- Lower buildings tend to collapse at either end (they 'whip' as the shockwave travels through them), so a flat in the middle of the building is safest. If the centre goes, so will the rest of the building usually.

That's all.. sleep well

cv

[alanw]

A few years back I was working in Japan.

I was at my company site in Osaka, a very large oil refinery. Late in the afternoon there was a severe tremor for several seconds. Office furniture went flying everywhere, office located close to production areas. My first thoughts were about severed feed pipes etc, particularly gasoline products. Luckily nothing whatever was damaged, no leakage anywhere.

A little later I was on a business trip to a site just outside of Hiroshima. I was in hotel bed, alone, naked. It was snowing outside. About 2.00 am everything shook like crazy perhaps for 4 or 5 seconds. I was thrown out of bed, small fridge rolled across the floor, lamps fell everywhere. I never slept naked again in Japan.

Regards

[ASIC]

The roof on my balcony collapsed during the last earthquake here. I wasn't home though, and didn't feel it.

ASIC