Earthquake's Unusual Pattern Stumps Many Engineers in Japan

Paul Alexander Of The, St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)

IT'S HARD TO WALK anywhere in this city and not see evidence of the awesome forces unleashed by the magnitude 7.2 earthquake that ripped through the city before dawn a week ago.

Wooden and concrete buildings lie in piles of rubble. Others tilt at impossible angles and will be razed. Elevated highways and overpasses collapsed.

Japan believed it was ready for a major quake. It wasn't ready for this.

"The human brain has a limit, but nature doesn't," said Yoshihiro Takeuchi, chairman of the Earthquake Damage Investigation Committee for the Japan Institute of Architecture.

For Takeuchi, an engineering professor at Osaka Institute of Technology, the …

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Publication information: Article title: Earthquake's Unusual Pattern Stumps Many Engineers in Japan. Contributors: Paul Alexander Of The - Author. Newspaper title: St Louis Post-Dispatch (MO). Publication date: January 24, 1995. Page number: 11C. © 2008 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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