Abstract:

On May 12th 2008 an earthquake of Magnitude 8.0 struck Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province. It left over 88,000 dead, 5 million homeless, and caused severe damage to buildings, roads and dams, and resulted in numerous major landslides some of which dammed the main rivers. The initial ground shaking lasted over 80 seconds and was felt over 1500 kms away. The focal depth of the earthquake was about 10 kms with an epicentral intensity (MMI) of Χ. This seminar presents the known data from earthquake, illustrates the damage caused to buildings and dams, and explains the geological conditions that produced the earthquake.

Biography:

Dr Fletcher is currently visiting associate professor in the building and construction department at CityU. He has studied the tectonic geology of China over many years from the Qinling Mountains, Shandong Province to Tibet. He was co-editor of a special volume of the Geological Society of London on �Aspects of the Tectonic Evolution of China� and has written many papers on the geology of Hong Kong. He was Head of the Geological Survey of Hong Kong from 1994-1998, and founded the Applied Geoscience Centre at The University of Hong Kong. He has been an Honorary Professor at Northwest University, Xi�an, Hefei University of Technology, and The University of Hong Kong.