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Article: Tower of tremors.(Taipei 101, skyscraper cause earthquake?)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Science World
- Article date:
- March 6, 2006
- Author:
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Last December, an earthquake rattled Taipei, Taiwan. Scientists say that Taipei 101--the world's tallest building--may have triggered the earthshaking quake.
A scientist has proposed that the 101-story skyscraper may build stress, or force per unit area, on underground faults. When the stress increases enough along these rock bound aries, the rocks slip past one another and an earthquake occurs. "The stress added by the tower's weight is like the straw that breaks the camel's back," says Cheng-Horug Lin, a seismologist who studies earthquakes at Taipei's Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica.
His evidence? Each year between 1990 and 1997--before ...