Learning from the recent Taiwan Meinong Earthquake

This paper highlights the lessons learned following a reconnaissance trip to Tainan, Taiwan two weeks after the February 2016 earthquake. The reconnaissance was conducted by Gilsanz, Murray Steficek engineers (GMS) and an earthquake engineer from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), the Applied Technical Council (ATC) and the National Center for Research in Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) of Taiwan. Observations were made of damages, success of base-isolated high-rise and retrofitted school buildings, site effects and ground failures as well as the response of both city agencies and building owners to the earthquake. The motivation for engineers and the public for such a mission is to learn from the observations to be better prepared for the next earthquake.