Bangkok, Thailand – In the teeming metropolis, which is Central Bangkok, Methinee Phoovatis monitored a small computer screen in the hope of finding signs of survivors.
Around Methinee, other members of the Thai department for disaster prevention and reduction (DDPM), coordinated the dozens of rescue workers on a path that led to a huge rubble.
The rescue teams worked in layers and searched for signs of life under the hill of cement and steel that drove over them.
“We only hope for a miracle that some of the people are still alive,” Methinee, a plan and political analyst in the DDPM, told Al Jazera.
It was four days after a Size 7.7 Earthquake torn in Bangkok On March 28th and when the hours and days passed, the chances that Methinee and her colleagues put the survivors were increasingly slimmer.
“We try our best for people. Hopefully they are still alive,” she said, standing in addition to a whiteboard, the balance of 73 people who were still missing from the ruins of the 30-story building that was designed for the National Audit office in Thailand.
The earthquake that rocked the Thai capital was particularly flat, only 10 km deep, which intensified the shock waves on the surface of the earth.
Although it is more than 1,200 km from the epicenter Myanmar, where thousands diedBangkok brought the earthquake to a standstill. Panische residents of this city with more than 11 million people stormed in search of security when buildings fluctuated and shivered.
A month later, life in the Thai capital is normal again.
But the dozens of deaths of them were at the point of the collapsed examination office building and the shock of the events of March 28, some in Bangkok have led to the security of the high-rise in the 12th highest city in the world.
“People screamed”
A sudden feeling of nausea and fluctuating lamps in his apartment on the ninth floor of a 41-story building said Harry Yang that he was in danger.
“I ran to my balcony and everything was trembling,” said the 29-year-old, who has called Bangkok since birth.
“People screamed,” he said.
Yang ran down the stairs of fire and immediately thought of his aging father, who lives in another high -rise in Bangkok in the 32nd floor and has problems with mobility.
Although his father, who works as an antique dealer, made it out of the ordeal, the quake destroyed many of his antiques and let him frighten it.
“My father is 68 years old, he has leg problems and he had to climb down the stairs to reach the ground floor, said Yang.
People had a good reason to be afraid. Video clips on social media showed Bangkok, whereby debris fell on the floor and water pours water in streams of skyscrapers -infinity swimming pools.
Lapaphutch Lertsachanant was in her apartment on the 27th floor when the quake struck.
“The building literally moved from side to side. At that moment I really had the feeling that the building could be cut in half,” said Lapaphutch.
“I really thought I wouldn’t survive,” she added, remembering her wish to speak to her partner one last time. “I thought I could have my last words with him. He would be alive with me in my last moments.”
Although seismic events are common in the region of Southeast Asia, the extent of the quake that Myanmar met – where more than 3,700 people were killed – and Shot Bangkok surprised many.
Wang Yu, deputy professor at the Department of Geoscientific at the National Taiwan University, said that Myanmar is located directly on a tectonic rejection line, the sagaing annexes, and the quake on March 28 occurred after a strike damage between India and Eurasian.
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), a strike foam refers to a tectonic mistake in which two plates move horizontally. Since 1900, the USGS has reported that six other large earthquakes with a size of 7.0 or more have occurred within 250 km (155 miles) of the epicenter in Myanmar of March 28.
Bangkok is based on a pelvis with unstable soil that can increase the effects of this quake, explained Wang Yu.
“When a seismic wave transmits to the pool from the outside, the amplitude of the seismic wave is enlarged,” he said.
The exact reason why the building collapsed in Central Bangkok will continue to be examined. No other building in Bangkok suffered such a catastrophic failure, although many structural damage was. Officials in Thailand have initiated an investigation to assess whether proper construction protocols were followed.
“Earthquake -resistant design”
Thailand introduced seismic regulations for buildings for the first time in 1997. In 2007, new laws stated that buildings had to be built more than 15 meters in areas with high risk such as Bangkok in order to withstand quake of up to size 7.0. Two years later, in 2009, the Thai Ministry of Public Work and Urban and Land Planning stopped a comprehensive “standard for earthquake-resistant design of buildings”.
In view of these building and technical regulations, questions were raised about how the almost constructed building in Bangkok could collapse.
“I think we have to find the basic cause so that we can at least learn a few lessons and improve the building regulations,” said the governor of Bangkok, Chadchart Sittipunt, shortly after the quake when the local authorities explored throughout Thailand to test and assess whether they were still structurally solid.
So far, the majority have been viewed as security standards.
On April 3, just six days after the earthquake, Bangkoks Metropolitan Authority explained the “disaster situation” in Bangkok, with the exception of the Collapse building location.
A month after the catastrophe, some residents are still concerned because superficial cracks and other damage to their high -rise buildings have contributed to continuing feelings of uncertainty.
Although the engineers explained that his apartment was to be living in safety, the 32-year-old Varuth Pongsapipatt found the series of cracks that ran a little worrying the walls of his apartment, but he had to do it.
“It’s pretty scary, but it has no influence on the structure of the building, so it’s okay,” he said to Al Jazera.
After Lapaphutch was outside the commission outside the commission after the quake in her condominium, she said that she had to move into her parents’ house for almost three weeks, and she was not in a hurry to return to her place on the 27th floor.
“I don’t have the feeling that I am sure to live again in a high building,” she said.
Harry Yang said his father refused to return to his 32-story house and feared that aftershock could occur.
“My parents are really worried. My father has been used to a hotel since the earthquake,” Yang said at Al Jazera at the beginning of this month.
Slow response
Studies by the Thai National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) after the earthquake showed that around 68 percent of the respondents were concerned about the stability and safety of buildings.
For some, the impact on the real estate market was also concerned.
“I’m more concerned about real estate prices,” said Yang.
“I think this will have a major impact on the real estate market and consumer confidence. Many people try to find a way to take off,” he said.
After the quake, Thai financial analysts predicted that sales of condominiums with potential buyers could be affected before they were bought twice about buying a high -rise building in Bangkok, which further put the country’s real estate sector under pressure.
“The earthquake of March 28 is expected to generate a windfall for houses with a low climb that is seen as less susceptible to seismic events. This trend will be reflected in the shift that was observed in 2011 when the nationwide floods prompted the own home buyers to conduct condominiums with low resting iron,” reported the newspaper from Bangkok, reported at the beginning this month.
The quake also revealed serious defects in the notal arm system in Thailand.
Although an earthquake warning system should keep the Thai public up to date, warning messages could only be sent to batches of 200,000 at the same time, creating a bottleneck that slowed communication in a country of almost 72 million.
Harry Yang said that neither he nor his parents had received emergency facilities. They were forced to search for information online after the tremor was hit.
In Lapaphutch, in Bangkok, weeks, weeks, said that she had never received emergency information.
“We really need such a system that can alert us,” she said. “Everyone in Thailand should check this type of notifications to make us well prepared.”
Nida’s survey showed that almost 60 percent of the respondents were concerned about the effectiveness of the early warning systems. Since then, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra has asked the system upgrades to increase the shipment capacity of the alarm attacks to 1 million at once, said local reports.
Despite the challenges, Thailand came out of tremor relatively intact.
Metals from the location of the collapsed 30-story building removed, Bangkok’s Chachuchak weekend market was busy just a few days after the tremor full of tourists, and the events seemed almost like a distant memory to be in a city that never really sleeps.
Harry has been agreed.
Bangkok’s residents had initially felt frightened, but that would pass, he said.
“At some point it will be normal again.”
