The
year 2000 has been a demanding year for most of us. The major earthquakes in Turkey, Greece and Taiwan have
accelerated the efforts to explore the reasons of the encountered damage as
well as for the implementation of earthquake hazard mitigation measures. Different groups from different countries
conducted detailed research investigations to have better understanding of the
factors affecting observed damage, to evaluate local site conditions and source
characteristics and the effect of these factors on the structural
response. Major studies have been
initiated to mitigate the earthquake risk for cities located in seismically
active regions. Most of these efforts
are still going on and significant measures are under way to mitigate
earthquake risk. Some important
initiatives have taken place to inform the public officials and the related
professional bodies to acquire more effective means to prevent similar
situations as witnessed during the 1999 earthquakes.
As the European Association for
Earthquake Engineering, we strongly believe that the major problem is the
awareness of the public and public officials of earthquake risk. The technical issues and earthquake research
are very important, however, the implementation of the preventive measures are
much more difficult and much more crucial.
We
are more aware of the need to increase the collaboration among our member
societies and among earthquake engineers in Europe. We would like to advance our joint efforts and improve our
cooperation to attain more effective means for investigating the effects of
different factors, for determining and
implementing earthquake risk mitigation measures.
Thus
we believe time has come to assess the existing state of affairs within our
association and implement the necessary modifications to increase the
effectiveness and the impact of EAEE.
European Association for Earthquake Engineering is the only organisation
encompassing most of the earthquake engineering community in Europe and in the
Mediterranean countries. These recent
earthquakes have shown to everybody that the only way to survive during
earthquakes is to design and build according to present state-of-the-art in
earthquake engineering. As EAEE, it is
our duty and goal to advance the science of earthquake engineering as well as
to increase the implementation of all preventative measures. This is our responsibility and contribution
to our society and to human race.
Therefore we have to find ways and means within our association to
establish more efficient and responsive organisation to achieve our goals. Some radical changes appear necessary to
increase the participation of interested individuals and parties. We have to modify our Statutes to be able to
coop with these crucial issues and we need your support and suggestions.
Atilla M. Ansal
Secretary
General