Vice Premier Chang San-cheng today presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the second laboratory for the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE). Chang expects a world-class facility that will advance Taiwan's earthquake research into a new era and enhance citizens' safety and tranquility.
More than 8.6 million Taiwanese live and 2.5 million buildings are located within five kilometers of the nation's 33 active faults, Chang noted. These residents and structures are threatened by near-fault seismic ground motions, so the government has allocated NT$1.3 billion (US$42 million) to build this new laboratory in conjunction with the Ministry of Science and Technology, National Development Council, the National Applied Research Laboratories (which includes the NCREE), and National Cheng Kung University (NCKU). The new facility will be dedicated to earthquake engineering research needed by Taiwan.
The vice premier also pointed out that Taiwan is situated in the Ring of Fire, a seismic belt prone to frequent earthquakes. Earthquakes pose a serious threat to the lives and property of Taiwanese people; for example, the September 21, 1999 earthquake wreaked havoc and caused more than 50,000 houses to collapse. The government has thus invested greatly in early earthquake warnings as well as disaster prevention and relief.
The NCREE has done invaluable tasks over the past years, such as assisting more than 10,000 elementary and junior high schools to reinforce their campus architecture, monitoring the safety of buildings and bridges, and developing various technologies to prevent or mitigate damages and to provide early warnings. This work has contributed immensely to public safety, the vice premier stated.
The new laboratory will be located at the Kuei-Jen Campus of NCKU in Tainan City. Chang thanked NCKU for providing the land and injecting funds to assist with construction. (The NCREE's first laboratory is housed within National Taiwan University in Taipei City.)
The vice premier hopes the academic sector will make good use of the new facility and its resources, especially to research and gain an in-depth understanding of the nature of near-fault seismic ground motions in order to develop better earthquake damage prevention and mitigation technologies that will make island residents safer and more at ease.