Newswise — Three decades ago, Wayne Pennington saw first hand how deadly quakes in Himalayas can be, and not much seems to have changed.
"Essentially, the buildings are designed to fall down," says Pennington, now chair of geological and mining engineering and sciences at Michigan Technological University.
In 1974, Pennington witnessed the aftermath of the Pattan earthquake, a magnitude 6.0 trembler that killed about 1,000 people in a remote region not far from the current disaster site. (Saturday's quake measured 7.6 on the Richter scale.)
Then as now, many died when their homes collapsed. The structures had walls two- to three-feet thick made of smooth stones taken from riverbeds, with roofs constructed of wood covered with rocks and dirt.
Pennington can discuss the challenges of the terrain, the geology that makes this area so vulnerable to quakes, local road-building and construction techniques, "and how, 30 years ago, everyone said 'this never happens here.'" In addition, he can talk about how local dogs provided an early warning system before the many aftershocks that rocked the region for days after the initial earthquake.
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