Antisymic engineer Carydis shows why the earthquake destroyed buildings in Albania

As the team from Construction. Info was in areas affected by the earthquake, in Durres by chance he met Greek professor Panayiotis Carydis, who has been an antisyesmic engineer since 1962, professor of honour at the polytechnique of Athens and founder and director of the Antisymic Engineering Laboratory.

In a construction interview, he has shown, among other things, what has affected buildings from coping with the earthquake and what needs to be done now with objects that have suffered injuries.

The professor has shown the concrete reasons for his visit to areas affected by the devastating earthquake in Albania.

I've come here for two reasons, one is to look scientifically at how damage and interactions occurred between the characteristics of the earthquake, earth conditions and the conditions of buildings that have brought about this image that we have achieved so far. I think they're big problems, and most of these problems haven't been presented openly, there's a lot of damage, much more than we think when we see them at first glance”, he said.

According to him, destruction and damage to buildings in the earthquake areas are caused by some factors.

At first glance at the damage, because we have another view of rescue operations, in terms of injuries, I think it's combining the results that follow, I can tell some of them, are parameters. One is intervention, additions, or collapse of several walls, etc. They were seen to have added floors or annexes, you know. Second, it's the quality of construction that's pretty weak and I can even say we have bad maintenance. Steel bars are rusty, and the type of skill is weak. And then we have the combination of soil that is soft, colonization, liquefiment problems and other things that can be very important even in combination with shock features” has been expressed Caredis.

According to his assessment, some objects damaged by the quake must be destroyed, while others have professional supervision.

Some of them have to be destroyed, and others have to be really under good engineering and constructive supervision, to reinforce and modify in accordance with circumstances, to follow modern codes, to save lives, because earthquakes happen, are happening and will occur in the future, whether now we have life as long as we are dead, but it is our duty to leave our children and future generations a safe city, the secure building”, he stated.

Professor Panayiotis Carydis has given some advice, including citizens, what needs to be done with buildings after the earthquake.

It's a long time, it's not just now. They have to learn how to follow the rules, they don't have to do things that are not appropriate, there are good rules, there are codes, there are good materials, very good ones. Old buildings have to be inspected, it's very important because we have successive earthquakes. Then, I say that buildings and materials have a memory, so when the first earthquake leaves a building with small damage that we may not give you attention, the next earthquake will come and start to damage the level and condition that the initial earthquake has left. If we don't follow a good repair practice, the first level is repair, it's not just that much, it needs to be strengthened, and then other additions. We also need to add to the worse parameters because of rust and because of the sea where the environment is corrosive and everything is multiplied because of poor skills and bad materials etc.”, he indicated.

The 6.4-magnitude quake has hit Albania on Tuesday morning (November 26th 2019), which has also been followed by continuing swings of lower magnitude. From this term the most affected areas are Durres and Thumana, where all the victims were caused, but damage has been caused in other cities as well. /Building.info/