Is it really possible to construct a building that can withstand a 7.0 earthquake?
A. Yes. If unlimited resources were available, you could build, or rebuild, a city the size of Port-au-Prince that would have very few fatalities in an earthquake like this. The problem is that even in a rich country, it’s very expensive to do. In a city like San Francisco, many of the structures are 100, even 150 years old, and were built before we understood what the earthquake hazard was or what caused it. We didn’t know anything about plate tectonics and, most importantly, we didn’t know how to build buildings that were earthquake resistant. So if there is a great earthquake in San Francisco, if there’s an 8.0 as there was in 1906, there are probably going to be thousands of fatalities. Ironically enough, it’s the skyscrapers, which tend to be newer, that are relatively durable. They’ll have things like windows fall out and there will be hazards of falling glass, but the building itself is probably not going to collapse. The problem with Haiti is not only are a lot of the houses ma
