The images from Turkey and Syria in the last week show us just how devastating a major earthquake can be. When the magnitude 7.8 earthquake we expect on the San Andreas fault happens, we will also see death and destruction, perhaps not as extensive as seen in Turkey, but much worse than most people expect. Rather than the post-earthquake usable buildings many people think are guaranteed by the building code, the current code asks only that our buildings try not to collapse.
Office buildings, hospitals, apartments and homes are only as good as the building code that was in place at the time they were constructed and the degree to which that code was enforced. Problems with enforcement of the code in new construction and the lack of retrofitting of old, bad buildings will contribute to the California death toll when the next big earthquake comes. Efforts to overcome these failures are underway, and we can hope that more is done in time.
But a third, potentially catastrophic flaw in our building code is not being addressed. When it comes to earthquake safety, the current international code is intended solely to keep a building from killing someone while keeping the cost of construction as low as possible.
