Skyscraper swimming pool during Myanmar earthquake

[u/porcupine9]

[u/prunford]

I'm in Bangkok, about 2km from where the construction building collapsed. Was in the 29th floor of a 2 year old 32 floor condo building during this. I was born and raised in Southern California so I'm no stranger to earthquakes but I've also never been in a high rise building during one. The force of the building swaying back and forth is something I will never forget, the room was moving back and forth several feet, it legit felt like the building was falling over.

[u/WardenWolf → u/prunford]

You were probably in the safest place you could have been; a modern highrise is probably designed to be earthquake resistant.

[u/Jarl_Korr → u/WardenWolf]

I assume an empty field would be the safest place during an earthquake

[u/theHonkiforium → u/Jarl_Korr]

In an area of the world that's not experiencing said earthquake

[u/Cosmic_Quasar → u/Jarl_Korr]

A new sinkhole appears

[u/kat_Folland → u/Jarl_Korr]

As long as it isn't right next to the actual fault line.

[u/Aetheus → u/WardenWolf]

In countries that experience frequent earthquakes, maybe, since regulations would be in place for this sort of thing. If I lived in Tokyo or something, sure, I'd trust that the building I'm in was built with earthquake resistance in mind.

In countries that rarely / never experience earthquakes? Terrifying. The building could have been built 20-30 years ago. Who knows what earthquake regulations (if any) existed back then for construction.

Worse - most of the highrises in Bangkok might not have toppled over, but who knows how structurally sound they are, now? My heart goes out to Thai condo owners. Next couple of years are going to be rough.

[u/Hyper_Wave → u/WardenWolf]

This is correct. High-rises are supposed to sway during an earthquake. A flexible foundation keeps the building's structure from crumbling.

[u/visualdescript → u/prunford]

God damn nightmare fuel. Nope nope nope nope

[u/PineappleWolf_87 → u/prunford]

Did it feel like it had rollers? My understanding structurally it's better to have more movement than less.

[u/IceLovey → u/prunford]

Im glad you are safe and srry for your experience.

As someone from Chile, I totally feel you, for the 2010 earthquake in Chile, I still remember the noise that the walls made during the earthquake. It was a haunting sound.

I think Thailand will probably need to remake most buildings or at least the old ones. The videos I have seen of the aftermath shows a lot of structural damage, meaning a lot of those buildings were not fully earthquake proof or at elast not for strong ones.

Earthquake preventive buildings are meant to be flexible instead of rigid, but some of the clips I have seen show too much swaying.

7.7 is strong indeed, but the epicenter was almost 1000 kms away. For such distance and magnitude you would expect a V or at most a VI on the Mercalli scale. But the damages were clearly above that, hinting poor anti seismic design (if the construction collapsing was not hint enough)

[u/prunford → u/IceLovey]

I can't speak for other buildings in bangkok/thailand but I'm very happy with the one I'm at. Juristic was very good at communicating updates throughout the day, they have had an emergency engineering team check the building followed by the corporations engineering team the following day. They had the building back up and running including elevators within 5 hours of the initial earthquake and have continued to update with all progress. There is minimal cosmetic damage to the lobby and some of the hallways. Despite the large swaying nothing in my condo fell over (except for me when I tried to walk to my door lol), none of the glassware in the kitchen cabinet moved at all.

But yeah, the creaking sound and the room shifting while being 130+ meters in the sky isn't something I'll ever forget.

[u/OCedHrt → u/prunford]

I wonder if they don't have sufficient dampers since not designed for earthquakes.

[u/kat_Folland → u/prunford]

I was on the 33rd floor of a building in San Francisco during a pretty minor quake. It was definitely wild to be in a building designed to sway.