Experts from UNAM:Earthquake of more than 8 Richter will hit Mexico city soon

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Earthquake would shake to DF and East of Edomex: experts

Investigators prehorseradish tree that the Valley of Mexico registers an earthquake of magnitude 8, which would more affect the informal constructions in Chalco and the Texcoco. In the city of Mexico they notice of serious damages in Tlatelolco and Rome colony

Carolina Garci'a
The Universal one
City of Mexico Saturday 06 of March of 2010
00:50



The Valley of Mexico will undergo an earthquake of magnitude 8 in the future and the affected zones more could be downtown of Mexico and the East of the State of Mexico, place where was the Lake of the Texcoco for being “soft” zones, and the informal constructions would be harmed in this scene, according to specialists.

The telluric movement could be generated in the Breach of Guerrero and would affect a good part of the constructions of the Metropolitan Area, assured the investigator Geophysical the Independent National University Mexico (UNAM), Raul Valenzuela Wong.

Before this scene, Jorge Aguirre González, president of the Mexican Society of Seismic Engineering, anticipates a “level of non-uniform security” in the constructions of the Valley of Mexico, due to the constructions of the informal sector, because they are not regulated.

“It is difficult to evaluate the risk of the same from (the point in) that have not been subject to a regulation”, indicates Aguirre González, who also is coordinating of Seismological Engineering of the UNAM.

Warily

Both specialists agree in which the great later constructions to the 1985 earthquake, like the Greater Tower, the second urban floors in megavías and other buildings normados by the Regulation of Constructions and their Practical standardses will have to resist a tremor of great magnitudes.


For Valenzuela Wong, the second floor in the Peripheral one “would have to be preparation for a telluric movement of great magnitudes”. The coordinator of Seismological Engineering of the UNAM refers something similar when indicating “that for an earthquake of great intensity, the philosophy of seismic design anticipates, mainly for economic reasons, that the constructions can even have nonstructural damages and structural damages, but not to arrive at the collapse”.

Castles in the air

Nevertheless, the greater risk is in the informal constructions, in particular the built ones to the East of the Valley of Mexico, where once the Lake of the Texcoco settled down, because “Chalco and the Texcoco have “a soft” ground”, according to Valenzuela Wong.

Aguirre González also emphasizes in the possible damage that could have that zone in case of an earthquake, because “the place where it was the lake of the Texcoco can generate amplifications important. Unfortunately, the urbanization of the metropolitan zone has grown much towards the East, where the installation of stations of seismic registry is almost null”.

Zones of risk

Another point that could suffer damages would be the Center of the Federal District. The specialists indicate to Tlatelolco and to the Rome colony; both zones have constructions previous to the regulations established from the experience of the 19 of September of 1985.

“The zones of the Center, Tlatelolco, Chalco and the Texcoco have “a soft” ground, of danger”, in counterpart with the Hill area, where there is major firmness and “where a smaller affectation in the 1985 earthquake was even seen”, it asserted Valenzuela Wong.

The president of the Mexican Society of Seismic Engineering confirms something similar when saying that “he knows that the Rome colony is a site where the seismic waves amplify and generate great accelerations of the land” and where the constructions are old.

In counterpart, the zone of Hills in the Federal District would be less affected according to Valenzuela Wong.


From the Breach of Guerrero

The call Breach of Guerrero has not registered tectonic movements from 1911, reason why it is anticipated that it is that zone where a tremor of 8 magnitude or superior is generated, because once in a while the plates in a site are reacomodan.


“It could be of magnitude of an eight or one comparable one to which one occurred in 1985, reason why a scene similar” to the happened thing in that one year would be had, according to the investigator of Geophysical of the UNAM.

In a visit to this newspaper, Valenzuela Wong explained that the 1985 earthquake had epicenter in the Cardinal red coasts of Lazaro, Michoacán, reason why in case the telluric movement had epicenter in the Breach of Guerrero would feel like more express in the city of Mexico by the proximity.

The most vulnerable cities before a telluric movement would be the District Federal and Acapulco, the one that in addition already has registered tidal waves, which “were not like in the films where a water wall rises, but rather the sea advances towards the Earth and floods the surface”.

The doctor in Geophysical of the UNAM sent a call to the population not to be alarmed and to think that with this he says that will be an earthquake next, because “can be known of the zones from where will come, but it is not known when”.

It alerts Seismic

On the System of Alerta Sísmica (SAS) that it operates in the coasts of Guerrero and warns the authorities in the Federal District, Valenzuela Wong specified that an interval of 60 seconds occurs before feels the tremor in the city of Mexico for, for example, “for the convoys of the Meter” or to take other pertinent measures. This system operates with acelerarómetros only in the coast of the state.

Besides this one, exists System of Alert Seismic of Oaxaca (SASO) that counts on acelerarómetros or sensors located in all the organization, but only warns in the state.

The state of Mexico does not count on a system of seismic alert, another disadvantage.


What to do before and during an earthquake?

Raul Valenzuela recommended to realise a familiar plan telluric events like arming an emergency rations kit that includes important documents, telephone lanterns, and numbers. Nevertheless, he said that one is due to take into account that before those facts, the lines are saturated.

During an earthquake he is recommendable to move away of windows, stairs zones where televisions or booksellers and cables of light could fall. He is better to remain next to the columns of a building, because it is a safe zone, or underneath a writing-desk or resistant table.

Cg