Eathquake in Pakistan

[kandrathe]

While it probably isn't practical, I'm always slightly amused by the fact that when severe natural disasters strike a large city, people seem to belligerently ignore them and rebuild instead of taking a hint and moving a little :)
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Yeah. I'm not so much amused as dismayed. Who ever was the bright bulb who thought that double decker freeways over the fault lines in Oakland was a good idea?

It's not just where we build, but also how. It's interesting to see, even at the local level, the drive of politicians to increase density to jack up tax revenues. I'm aghast at times to see such poor urban planning, poor engineering, and the resignation of cities with their almost zero capacity for dealing with catastophe. Part of the problem is historic, and no amount of expert engineering can protect a new or old building that is build on soil that is prone to liquifaction. But, most of the problem is economic. Say you were able to say, "Hey, this whole 1 mile section of LA is build on poor soil and if an earthquake hits its all going to sink." What would be done? My guess is nothing, and in the aftermath, the developers would buy the land and redevelop it and sell it to the next victims of bad planning and foresight.

So, yes. Yet another disaster, and once again the authorities are caught with pants around their ankles.