Earthquakes and floods are not only risking human casualties, but also causing material losses due to the many buildings that collapse. Many people blame the scale of the earthquake which damaged and destroyed buildings. In fact, the quality of buildings that is not up to concrete building standard is the factor that caused the collapse of the building. "We can see the reality right now, the Dutch heritage buildings stand strong, while many new buildings collapsed after the earthquake," said UGM architect, Ir. Yoyok Wahyu Subroto, M. Eng., Ph.D., on the sidelines of Transfer of Technology on Effective and Sustainable Concrete Constructions Seminar at the UGM Graduate School on Tuesday (5/7).
Furthermore, Yoyok added that communities’ ignorance about the concrete building standards resulted in the building’s inability to withstand shocks and tremors. "A lot of concrete buildings are not properly constructed because of ignorance due to lack of information and knowledge, or perhaps indeed due to constrained costs," he said.
Yoyok does not dismiss that the collapse of government buildings is caused by the measurement manipulation of the concrete materials that are often encountered in a number of projects. While in theory, material and structure of concrete buildings are very effective to make the building stand firm. Yoyok also said that the remaining of collapsed buildings or anything that are still standing should still be utilized for new building material. But unfortunately, the building that is still standing after the earthquake is often torn down to build new building. "Actually, there is no need to tear it down because the concrete technology has to use the principle of 3Rs, reduce, recycle, and reuse," he said.
Meanwhile, lecturer of Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Prof. Dr. Ir. Imam Satyarno, says the concrete is still the most widely used material in civil construction. However, concrete is easily damaged in an aggressive environment, including physical, chemistry, biology and mechanics environment. Satyarno explains the excessive dynamic load and collision become the destructive factor of concrete building structures. Meanwhile, the physical environment, namely the presence of erosion, abrasion, bugs, as well as fire and chemical content, e.g., sulfate, acid, chloride, carbon dioxide, as well as alkali-silica reaction, causes the concrete building easily damaged. “To repair the concrete requires particular methods, materials, and the equipment. It also has to be done by trained people," he said.