To ensure safety of people living and working in high-rise buildings in Makati, City government ordered the owners to install seismographs in their buildings; this is to monitor the ground movement during the earthquake and for faster detection of possible earthquakes in the future.
The device is also called as accelerometers, it said to be capable of detecting and monitoring the response of a building if there is a typhoon. City Engineer, Nelson Morales released a memorandum that mandated the developers, contractors, owners and administrators of the high rise building in the city to comply with new directive.
Under the new order, it covers all the high rise buildings in Makati City and those who are still in the process of constructing or in design stage.
Morales said that those buildings who will not comply to this mandate of installing the device will not be issued occupancy permits by the city government.
According to the Mayor of Makati, Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr., he said that the installation of the seismograph device in high rise buildings is an urgent thing to do since it is included in the policies and guidelines which is contained in the memorandum circular recently issued by Public Works and Highways Secretary Rogelio Singson to building officials and local engineers.
This statement of Binay is referring to DPWH Memorandum Circular No. 03 which was dated March 31 this year. It cites Section 105(2) of the National Structural Code of the Philippine.
Under the memorandum, all high rise buildings in the City is required to have an accelerometers or seismographs specifically those buildings which measured over 50 meters high.
Building which is consisting of 15 floors are usually measures 50 meters high and considered as a high rise building
In the statement released by Mayor Binay he said that the directive must be strictly implemented right away because no one can tell when a strong earthquake will strike Metro Manila and how strong it will be, so it is better to prepare now.
In the present record, there is more than hundred (100) high-rise building in Makati and around 30 more is under construction.
