Hacker News Reader

Comment by gorkemcetin | Hacker News Reader

I have never seen an earthquake covering such a wide area. I confirm collapsing buildings in at least 5 cities. There is a big chaos on social media as well - many people asking for help since they are stuck under debris. What a disaster!

View on HN

I accidentally saw one of these videos on Twitter. As a human, seeing a young person suffering, frightened and calling for help in real time when I can do nothing felt disgustingly voyeuristic. Perhaps humans who have never met and will likely never meet were never meant to connect in this way?

The situation is apparently quite grim with the broad scale of devastation. I hope technology can help guide and focus resources and rescuers as quickly as possible.

What an awful event.

I vividly remember watching videos of the 2011 Japanese tsunami rolling inland. Seeing cars and bicyclists that looked like small toys that were completely oblivious to the torrent of water that was about to be upon them gave me such a sickening, helpless feeling.

I saw this too, trapped under debris with only their cellphone flashlight and dwindling supply of oxygen. So gut wrenching and horrifying to see, still can’t stop thinking if it was me in that situation. I hope they make it out alive.

Are you saying that people are asking for help in general or that the actual people stuck inside collapse buildings are using their socials in search of help?

What kind of infrastructure is in place that would survive to allow network connectivity for people to access socials to ask for help?

It's a common sight for one bulding to be standing virtually undamaged while the one next to it is a pile of rubble.

Infrastructure is fine.

At least enough of it is. I had no trouble calling people in the area minutes after it happened.

Apparently mobile connectivity is intact in some places, but data is generally down. People are calling/texting their friends who in turn post it on social media:

https://twitter.com/search?q=deprem

> actual people stuck inside collapse buildings are using their socials in search of help?

This one. On the previous large quake in the country, the networks collapsed and there was a huge public uproar because the network operators were claiming disaster readiness in their ads, even showing drone swarms flying to the disaster area to provide network services.

Maybe they actually hardened their networks but in general, the internet connectivity seems more resilient as the regular phone calling was restored much later than the internet connectivity last time.

This time there are many tweets and instagram stories of people posting text, selfies and videos from under the rubble, together with their address, their condition and the number of people in the house.

Here are a few examples:

https://twitter.com/lilalayd/status/1622604576019849216

https://twitter.com/Erhan_Dogan23/status/1622477226754064389

Why did the buildings collapse? They don't have a build code for seismic-dangerous zones? Or the possibility of this earthquake was never predicted?

It’s pretty hard to build for a 7.8. That’s ridiculously strong, similar to SF 1908 which pretty much destroyed the entire city..

The location of the earthquake is pretty much on top of a plate fault so earthquakes are to be expected, especially big ones But the problem is not that you can't build for big earthquakes, more that the whole area is a low income one with everything that along

It is possible to build for a 7.8, at least so that the structure doesn't collapse (severe interior damage is inevitable). But many older high-rises in San Francisco were built to weaker standards or on soil subject to liquefaction and would be at serious risk.

https://sf.curbed.com/2018/6/18/17465696/highrises-san-franc...

1906*

This one really came as a surprise, and since people often only act when there's a precedent, sadly the building collapsed. They will learn from this, like the Japanese did.

No, they won't, unfortunately. Turkey is in the fault lines and there was a 7.6 earthquake in 1999. A lot has been said but not much have been done.

Just a couple of years ago, there was "amnesty" for buildings. My father in-law was bragging how his building, which did not have any inspection or permits during the construction, has gotten amnesty for a small fee and he could sell flats to others now..

https://twitter.com/nblaser18/status/1622610294471024640

Talks of another amnesty days before this earthquake.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com