If we start to build underground how will the buildings be affected by an earthquake?
Jun 29, 2009
in
Earthquake Questions
If the United States decides to build all buildings underground due to lack of space above, how would earthquakes affect them?
Would they break apart and be buried?
Lets use an Earthquake level of 6.0
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One comment
stripedbass91 on June 29, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Now you have a very creative mind there!
Unfortunately, building buildings underground can be a potentially hazardous idea. The buildings today technically are underground (basement level, the federal reserve, etc) but once it is past a certain part, it is tough to get that deep anyways. Bedrock is the hardest material to break, that is why so many buildings and structures are actually build into them so it will be extremely tough to collapse. (The more dense areas with lots of tall buildings in New York City mean that they are concentrated in an area where bedrock is the base of the buildings). Earthquakes will effect the buildings still because it will still be situated on a moving plate. When an earthquake occurs, it would really suck to be the people on the bottom floor in an underground building. It would pretty much guarentee critical injuries, if not then death, due to the fact that the only way to go is up to the surface when you are underground and the higher you are in a building during an earthquake, the worse it will be so it will be extremely risky. I don't think that there will be a problem with running out of space for buildings anytime soon, the more problematic question would be what do we do and how can we prepare for the exponentially rising population?