By NNN-Yonhap.
Seoul : Most buildings in Seoul are vulnerable to earthquakes, with less than 10 percent of them designed to have quake resistance, the city government said Tuesday.
Only 9.85 percent of 628,325 commercial and apartment buildings in the capital were confirmed to be resistant to a strong earthquake as of the end of last year, the government said.
The present construction law has a provision requiring three-story or higher buildings or buildings totaling 1,000 square meters to be resistant to earthquakes of 7.0 or stronger magnitude. But structures built before the provision was introduced in 1988 are believed to be vulnerable to quakes, the government said.
The city has also begun checking the safety of subway lines, as most parts of the four lines built decades ago are presumed not to be quake-resistant.
“The five story or higher buildings without quake-resistance design, are the most vulnerable ones in case of a 5.5 magnitude or stronger quake,” Yang Du-ho, head of a team at the city’s firefighting and anti-disaster headquarters, said.