Engineers say towers could be risk-prone

[NewsWhore]

The president of the Dominican College of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors (CODIA), Domingo Tavera Ulloa says buildings built under older seismic standards code may need to be retrofitted. He singled out buildings with tuck-under parking, or open commercial or parking space on the first floor supported by columns. Experts now say that this makes the first story soft and risk-prone in the case of a 7+ earthquake. Tavera Ulloa says that it is possible to upgrade many of the older structures. He also mentioned asymmetric buildings would be vulnerable to major (7+) earthquakes, mentioning places like Chile, Turkey and Mexico as examples of the results of these "construction pathologies." He said the nation's new Seismic Code in effect since March 2011 establishes more earthquake resistant standards especially for high-rise towers.

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