fear of high rise buildings?

this if food for thought (to do with the recent earthquake). from SCuM discussion group, a mr magoo wrote:

“I just wondering whether the tremor felt over here will have any short term or long term impact on the property value of the residential high unit in Malaysia. Since I don’t think our developers has taken earth quake into consideration when building the properties.

For those who has lived in high rise building over here and
experienced the tremor, what would be your next move?”

well, i’m not staying in a high-rise building but at a 5-storey walk-up flat. an old one room flat. let’s see how old it is… hmm… i remember my brother moved in this flat when he had his first child. ahh… my first nephew… he is now 20 years old. that means the flat is more then 20 years old! (my sister then later on bought the flat from my brother, and we stay together).

yesterday when several of us rushed down from our flat after feeling the tremors, we were chatting about what if the tremors was very strong, and our building being an old building, surely it will topple down? and someone said this building was not built to withstand earthquake. of course not. for one thing, it is an old building, and for another, as someone one else said, malaysia where got earthquake one, so what for they think of earthquake when they build houses.

so i guess even all those new buildings (corporate) and high rise residential units coming up were not constructed to withstand such a disaster that ‘malaysia will never be affected with’ (earthquake). but are we so sure? yes, granted we won’t experience such major earthquake, but such earthquakes in our neighbouring countries will affect us, like feeling the tremors which might cause cracks in the building and hence the danger of it collapsing is there.

so i guess mr magoo’s question on whether the tremors we felt both on boxing day 2004 and easter monday 2005 will have any impact on the property value of residential units, i would say yes in a way. what do you think? would people be afraid to buy apartments in high-rise building, with the knowledge that the building won’t withstand earthquake? maybe initially they would, but as we know, people have short memory, later on, they would forget all about the tremors.

i repeat mr magoo’s 2nd question for you to ponder on:
“For those who has lived in high rise building over here and
experienced the tremor, what would be your next move?”

maybe what you could do, is like what petertan did, persuade the building management to draw up a contigency plan for emergencies.

anyway, it is good to hear in the star paper of 28 march, that the ‘penang high-rise unit owners association’ had pushed the government to table a ‘property maintenance bill’. this association was set up in september last year but according to the president, this bill had been talked about since 2003. the president said that this bill will help residents of high-rise building to air their grouses.
(sorry, cannot find the url to this article now.)
UPDATED: found the link – high-rise owners: hasten tabling of bill.

in a related topic, malaysiakini had highlighted the need for evacuation procedures for high-rise building. (if you are not a malaysiakini subscriber, click here to read).

NOTE: i think blogger.com was down early this morning. i wanted to post this at my usual posting time (i.e. between 0001 hrs to 0002 hrs) but can’t. then in the morning before going to work at 0645 hrs, i try, still cannot. i’m sure others blogger users experience this too.