Chile, Haiti, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey In a matter of weeks, major earthquakes have killed more than 230,000 people, torn apart dozens of cities and left millions homeless. By Dan McFeely and John Russell Posted: March 6, 2010 A nervous globe wants to know: Who is next? A tough question that nobody can answer -- yet. But a team of experts at Purdue University might be getting close. They may not want to call it predicting, because they can never accurately say when the next "big one" is going to hit. But the fact is, two years ago these Purdue experts essentially predicted the Haiti earthquake that struck Jan. 12. Several researchers traveled to Haiti after the quake -- one is still there -- and plans are being made to return next month. Other researchers will head to Chile, where an earthquake struck Feb. 27. Meanwhile, the number-crunching will continue in West Lafayette, where the signs pointing to the Haiti quake were first noticed. "What we did was not a prediction. It was using the numbers to indicate a possible scenario," said geophysics Professor Eric Calais, who teaches at Purdue and is a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. Calais led the team that published the warning in 2008. On the other side of campus, civil engineering professors are in the beginning stages of setting up a research hub to tie together a national network of 14 large-scale experimental sites -- university labs with oversize "shake tables" and "tsunami wave basins" -- to study ways to build better roads, buildings and utility systems able to withstand these natural disasters. Purdue is using a $105 million grant from the National Science Foundation to become the hub of this effort that will help earthquake-ravaged cities such as Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Concepcion, Chile, rebuild. "We always learn lessons from an earthquake," said Professor Julio Ramirez, who runs the new hub. Earthquakes strike the planet about 50 times a day, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Most hit in remote areas or are so small that they are barely noticed. But beginning with the Haiti quake in January, the images of death, pain and broken buildings have made news all over the globe. Haiti's 7.0-magnitude quake killed an estimated 230,000 and left 1.2 million homeless. On Feb. 27, Chile had a more powerful 8.8 quake that so far has resulted in about 540 deaths. Two other major quakes have hit off the coast of Japan and in Taiwan, but with little damage and no loss of life. "We don't understand why now or why later," said Calais, "but a lot of research is going on to try and figure that out . . . to find that silver bullet, the one thing you see before every event." Before the Haiti quake Long before the tragedy in Haiti, Calais and his team had spent five years studying data collected from GPS monitors and satellite-based radar -- and it all pointed to major shifts along the faults that lurk beneath the island Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic. Prior to the invention of such technology, the only way to identify an area at risk was to find fault lines -- actual slices in the earth -- and dig deep down to test soil samples and develop a history of activity, which could indicate the chances of future activity. The new technology, available for a little more than a decade, can pinpoint a shift in the surface soil so small that over a year's time, it may only cover the width of a piece of spaghetti -- and yet be a sign of a deformation of the earth's crust and a buildup of energy that often leads to a quake. Using computer models developed at Purdue, Calais and his fellow researchers published a paper in 2008 predicting a possible 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti and a 7.5-magnitude earthquake in the Dominican Republic. The forecast for Haiti was eerily close to the actual 7.0-magnitude earthquake. "Their prediction was very good," said Attila Kilinc, a geochemist at the University of Cincinnati. "Unfortunately, nothing was done in Haiti to take advantage of this warning. But it certainly is helping Purdue build their reputation in this area." Although not many in Haiti paid attention at the time, Calais said efforts were under way before the quake hit to prepare people for what was to come. On the day of the quake, Jean Arsene Constant, a Haitian colleague of Calais', was in a meeting with 20 people discussing the publication of an earthquake preparedness brochure. The building collapsed, killing Constant and all but two in the room. "They tried (to prepare), but they were starting from way behind with very little resources," Calais said. He traveled to Haiti shortly after the quake to view the damage and install ground sensors to measure aftershocks. He plans to return in April to continue the earthquake readiness work of his deceased colleague. Born in France, Calais became fascinated with the earth's tectonic plates as a young student who saw mountains and valleys on his travels. He received his doctorate in Nice, France, and has spent the past 20 years watching the Enriquillo fault that cuts across Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The fault is part of the boundary between two quake-triggering tectonic plates -- the Caribbean and the North American plates -- slowly rubbing against each other as they move in opposite directions. Although the numbers indicated the two plates were moving apart at a rate of 2 centimeters per year, putting tremendous strain on the fault, his team was not able to predict exactly when that movement would produce an earthquake, the way a weatherman can predict a thunderstorm. "Nobody can," Calais said. "And the people who say they can, actually don't. But it's worth working on." After the Haiti quake If predicting the time and location of an earthquake is out of the question, then the best way to help the world handle such disasters is to promote preparedness. That's the goal for Ramirez, who, after nearly 30 years of research in civil engineering, was named to head up the new Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, based at Purdue's Discovery Park. "We want to find ways to reduce the destruction and the death we see from earthquakes and the tsunamis that often follow," Ramirez said. Using technology created by Purdue researchers, partners from across the country will be able to simulate destructive scenarios on the Internet, rather than installing expensive computer programs. This will help researchers share information and equipment to educate future engineers and help develop ways to build cities that can withstand the powerful forces of nature. Among the current partners are researchers and facilities at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, San Jose State University and the universities of Florida, Kansas, Michigan, Texas and Washington. Ramirez, who was born in Mexico and has had a lifelong fascination with earthquakes, hopes to expand the center beyond U.S. borders. "In Haiti, things could have been better," he said. "If you can engage more people, I think you can be more effective in preventing such tragedies. But this is not a problem we can solve in the U.S. alone." |