Practical earthquake training was provided to primary school students

Applied training was provided to the students of Golcuk Primary School in Denizli’s Acipayam district at Pamukkale University’s Shemseddin Terzioglu Earthquake Science and Engineering Laboratory on Earthquake Mechanism, Urbanization Impact, Loss of Life and Damages, and Engineering Precautions to Prevent Losses and Damages Before Earthquakes.

As part of the training conducted by retired faculty members Prof. Dr. Omer Aydan and Prof. Dr. Naohiko Tokashiki from Ryukyu Islands of Japan, along with Pamukkale University’s Geology Engineering Faculty Member Prof. Dr. Halil Kumsar, an experimental training was carried out where the shaking table designed and manufactured by the students of Golcuk Primary School was used to demonstrate liquefaction experiments involving sandy soils with groundwater during earthquakes.

In the second phase of the training, on the Earthquake Shaking Table donated to Pamukkale University by Prof. Dr. Omer Aydan and installed in our university laboratory after being brought from Japan, the behavior of aboveground structures and buried infrastructure elements on sandy, silty, and groundwater-containing soil on the descending block of a normal fault was experimentally demonstrated during earthquakes up to a magnitude of 7.6.

All students, teachers, and Ministry of National Education officials who visited the laboratory carefully followed the experimental applications and ensured that future generations receive education on precautions to prevent loss of life before earthquakes. Subsequently, questions from students regarding the working mechanism of the donated shaking table from Japan, the formation of faults, early earthquake warning system, and how to construct buildings on liquefiable soils were addressed by the faculty members.