Disaster Recovery and the Road Ahead - IGNOU

Anchoring lighting fixtures to the ceilings
Checking and repairing electric wiring, gas pipes, water pipes and plumbing services
Rebuilding non-structural walls, smoke chimneys, parapet walls
Fastening shelves to the walls
Replastering of walls
Rearranging disturbed roofing tiles
White washing, painting
Increasing the lateral strength by increasing walls and columns
Giving unity to the structure
Aim should be to reach an integral box action. Foundations are strengthened by introducing new
load bearing members, improving the drainage, and adding strong elements like reinforced concrete
strips. Roofs can be strengthened by replacing slates and roofing tiles with corrugated iron or
sheeting. Roof truss frames should be braced by welding. New walls can be inserted to make
unsymmetrical buildings stronger.
To deal with damages that occur due to an earthquake, many specialized techniques are required.
The repairing methods for the damaged houses, constructed with brick walls could be:
a) Fill the cracks with cement, sand (1:
6) mortar. If the crack in the wall is
quite thin then, fill it up with cement
paste.
If the wall is severely damaged,
or a large number of cracks have
occurred, the replacement of the
wall will be a better option. For
reconstructing the wall, sufficient
support with wooden log etc.,
has to be provided to the roof.
Then, construct the wall in (1 :
6) cement and sand mortar
b) If the reconstruction of severely damaged walls is not possible, the following method can be
adopted:
Remove the plaster from the wall around the cracked portion
Clean the wall with the wire brush
Put rectangular iron wire mesh on both the sides with holders over the cracked wall along
with clean portion
Plaster the wall over the wire mesh using cement, sand (1: 3) mortar.
Source: hhf-housetrendir.com
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