Re-barring any more catastophe…

Remember how the news was dominated by the big earthquake in Chile?

Neither do I… and, as Inca Kola News says, that’s news that should be reported:

See that Rebar? That’s what good buildings have in seismic areas (for example, the house in which your humble scribe is currently typing these words, as it was built by us) and it’s precisely that kind of building standard that allows the very big quake and its aftershocks in well-built Iquique to become a minor news item just days after the event. Because that building was put together correctly, the very large and heavy concrete roof sheared and wobbled horizontally, causing the damage seen, but didn’t break off and pancake the house to nothing. Meanwhile, we’re still talking about the 2010 Haiti earthquake which measured at 7.0 mag, precisely and exactly because nobody could be bothered to put rebar into any of the concrete columns. Result, 220,000 dead bodies.

Building with rebar is expensive… much beyond the budget of poor Haitians. Outside of a few private initiatives, I haven’t heard of any governmental “assistance” going into any projects that just involve building better houses. Maybe scrap metal isn’t sexy enough for the NGOs and there’s not enough “concessions” in it for the banksters and “economic consultants” to think about, but the best rehabilitation project I can think of for any earthquake shattered region is “preventative medicine”… try to keep people from getting killed, and having buildings fall down in the first place.

(I’ll be living part time in Mexico City over the next few months, so earthquakes are on my mind).