Premier Chang San-cheng has held a meeting on surveying areas at risk of soil liquefaction. Soil liquefaction is a real danger in Taiwan, where earthquakes are frequent.
A new strategy approved at the meeting distributes surveying tasks on three levels. The central government will responsible for level one surveys, which will focus on cities. At the second level, local governments will survey their jurisdictions and provide data for construction projects. The third level will consist of industry-level surveys for specific construction projects.
Chang said the central government will publish the findings of its level one surveys in March. Meanwhile, Cabinet spokesperson Sun Lih-chyun outlined the results the central government hopes to see from local surveys.
“We hope that local governments will carry out more detailed surveys, for example on 1:3000 scale, based on [the data of the central government’s] large-scale surveys," said Sun. "The most important thing is that in future development projects, local governments will know clearly about how stringent they should be with construction companies.”
The central government has already completed surveys in Taipei, Yilan, Hsinchu, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung. Other cities and counties will be surveyed in order of the likelihood of soil liquefaction.
The Cabinet has also decided to expand the work of checking on the structural integrity of older houses to include houses built before the 921 earthquake of 1999.