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SEOUL: South Korea's capital Seoul appears vulnerable to possible earthquake threats as less than nine percent of the buildings in the city, are designed to be earthquake-resistant, the city government said Tuesday.
As of last year, 61,919 buildings out of 628,325 ones in Seoul, the country's largest city, were confirmed to be quake-resistant, which accounts for mere 9.85% of the total, China's Xinhua news agency cited the Seoul Metropolitan Government, as saying.
Under the current law introduced in 1988, all buildings of 3-storey or higher and buildings whose sizes exceed 1,000 sq m are required to be resistant to earthquakes.
But the city government said that smaller buildings or buildings constructed before 1988 are exposed to possible earthquake threats.
Meanwhile, South Korea's National Emergency Management Agency recently conducted simulation experiments, which showed more than 50,000 people would be killed if a massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake strikes the capital with a population of 10 million.
An earthquake that hit the Korean peninsula last year had an estimated magnitude of 4.0, according to local daily Dong-a Ilbo. -- Bernama
