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The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which houses the Geo-Institute, announced that the 2016 revision of its ASCE Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures will, for the first time, contain a chapter on tsunamis. Part of the creation of this chapter was the establishment of a committee to study the response of buildings, and their internal structures, to tsunamis. The committee was officially established in February of 2011, just weeks before the devastating Tohoko Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. Click for more:
In a new article from ASCE, the Committee Chair, Gary Chock, recounts the team's quick dispatch to Japan following the tsunami disaster and how observations of the damage allowed them to validate the tsunami chapter for practical applications. Chock expresses that there are several states with over $250 billion dollars in economic assets that are at risk of tsunamis.
ASCE says the standards will be published sometime in early 2017. Information about the forthcoming standards can be found here.