Is Adelaide Ready for an Earthquake? Experts to Assess City's Preparedness

Is Adelaide ready for an earthquake? A panel of four experts from South Australia will explore Adelaide's preparedness for an earthquake.

Engineering experts and a seismologist will discuss the risk of major earthquake facing Adelaide, home to 1.2 million Australians.

They will also provide solutions that can help make the city safer, in the free public forum "Quaking with Fear" part of the special "Research Tuesday" at the University of Adelaide Tuesday (August 14) next week.

The forum will be reviewing Adelaide's earthquake risk, incorporating the lessons learned from the 6.3 magnitude earthquake that devastated Christchurch, the largest city south of New Zealand, in February 2011.

During the forum, the panel experts will also tackle the research being done to assess the earthquake resistance of our brick and stone buildings and to develop strengthening techniques and design tools for engineers.

Michael Harbison, Lord Mayor of Adelaide, will facilitate the forum.

The panel will be composed of Professor Michael Griffith, Peter McBean, Lisa Moon and David Love.

Prof. Griffith, from School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering at the University of Adelaide, leads the research into the earthquake vulnerability of unreinforced masonry buildings and how best to strengthen them. He also sits on Standards Australia's Australian Earthquake Loading Code committee.

McBean, director of engineering firm Wallbridge & Gilbert, was part of the Australian Urban Search and Rescue team sent to Christchurch. He also serves as the Structural Engineering Design Director for the New Royal Adelaide Hospital.

Lisa Moon, a PhD student in Structural Engineering at the University of Adelaide, has worked as "a structural engineering consultant in Australia and New Zealand and spent most of 2011 in Christchurch on damage assessments."

Love, a seismologist with the Geological Survey, Department for Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy, has been involved in earthquake loading codes since the Newcastle earthquake of 1989.