29 June, 2006

History Diving

These mild tremors made me wonder
Year 2012. You are on 178th floor in the Burj Dubai. Here comes the mild tremor again.

"In case of emergency, take the stairs" says the signboard. All the best :)

Unless they have a back-up plan, how long do you think they will take to evacuate the whole building?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

They will provide parachutes to every inhabitant of the building from 50th floor and above. XD

B.D. said...

I've never heard of a very tall building collapsing in an earthquake. It seems that it is smaller buildings, when old or not well constructed, that do. Why? I suppose tall buildings are inherently built better just to be able to tolerate the ordinary stresses associated with such height.

If there is a fire in a tower, there is no reason to expect the entire building to be engulfed--in this country they are all built mainly of concrete which does not readily burn or allow fire to spread. So, it would be necessary to only evacuate people to a few floors higher or lower.

Anonymous said...

We'll take off in our scoota-planes.

Grumpy Goat said...

High rise buildings are almost always designed to withstand earthquakes. Steel frames are flexible, as indeed are slender reinforced concrete columns. An earthquake should do no more than cause a tower to sway a bit.

Any major earthquake in the UAE would - God forbid - cause most casualties in the older single-storeyed buildings.

That said, emergency evacuation from towers is an issue pivotal to high-rise safety.

Woke said...

The question was whether an evacuation was possible on a short time frame, should something like that occur - assuming Emaar is smart enough not to risk the leaking villas architecture over here.

BuJ said...

there has been serious talk in engineering circles to use parachutes off tall buildings in case of emergencies.

the height makes it viable. and young ppl can use it, leaving the stairs for less mobile people and the services to come and help.

as bd has said, i won't worry about a quake coz they design against them now.. esp the dubai burj which has excessive structural rigidity in it.. but i would worry about fire more.

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