US News
How many of California's concrete buildings might fall like those in Turkey’s deadly earthquake?
March 23, 2023 12:01PM ET
The scenes of tilted, crumbled and collapsed concrete buildings after powerful earthquakes jolted Turkey and Syria last month are sobering. In Turkey alone, the shaking wrecked some 185,000 buildings, and the death toll in both countries has topped 48,000 people. Could the Bay Area’s concrete buildings suffer a similar fate when The Big One strikes? Fortunately, experts say California wouldn’t see the level of devastation like that in Turkey and Syria. But there is a danger, and experts say some buildings erected before 1980 using inflexible or “nonductile” concrete construction will fall. The...