Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChatGTP | Hacker News Reader

What is positive is that it's a public holiday in Japan and many larger buildings in the area would've been empty.

Larger buildings tend to better withstand the large quakes. Building codes have been revamped after large quakes in Japan, so large commercial and public buildings tend to be the safest ones. They also are used for temporary shelter in natural disasters like quakes and heavy rain/typhoons.

Problem are with older wooden houses. There's quite a few photos and videos of older houses that have completely collapsed or their ground floors collapsing.

On a side note, since it's a public holiday, hospitals aren't able to cope with those who are injured because they're lightly staffed, and medical personnel can't reach them due to damaged roads, etc.

> Problem are with older wooden houses. There's quite a few photos and videos of older houses that have completely collapsed or their ground floors collapsing.

Indeed. For those who do not know, new year celebrations in Japan happen from 1 January onwards [1] and usually entails visiting in-laws, parents, and grandparents (or them visiting you), very much akin to Christmas. Thus it may very well be more likely to have families coming over to their parents and grandparents living in older houses on a day like this than any other time of the year.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_New_Year

Building codes have been revamped after large quakes in Japan, so large commercial and public buildings tend to be the safest ones.

They've been revamped, but Ishikawa hasn't rebuilt everything to the new codes in the last 40 years or so they were introduced.

It's not a wealthy area.

There are ways to upgrade existing buildings that makes more sense in taller buildings than small houses, which of course is government subsidized, so taller buildings in Japan are often safer. Or at least safe for the first one. Some says the exoskeleton approach[1] is ugly as hell, I think it's cyberpunk.

1: https://dailyportalz.jp/kiji/170113198541

I have never seen any of this in Joetsu or surrounding areas (very close to Ishikawa). Maybe you've spent most of your time in Tokyo?

It’s a fairly common sight in Joetsu, particularly for government buildings. This company shows a list of seismic retrofitting projects that it has done in Joetsu, for example:

https://www.sato-san.jp/works/list.php?cat_id=11

There are also subsidies and financing available in Niigata prefecture for seismic retrofitting wooden homes built before 1981:

https://www.pref.niigata.lg.jp/sec/jutaku/1356814927041.html

For sure though there are many homes in the area that have never been retrofitted.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com