Kit Miyamoto Field Journals-
Ecuador Day 1: JOURNEY TO MANTA EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATION
QUITO, ECUADOR – 11:12 AM, APRIL 24, 2016 As we fly into Quito, the capital of Ecuador, the high mountain scene opens up below. Wispy clouds drift...
-
Ecuador – Day 2 Into the Red Zone
7:02 am – April 25, 2016 I awake to pounding at the thin wood door of my jungle hotel. Opening it, groggy, I find a slender woman...
Kit Miyamoto
Follow Dr. H. Kit Miyamoto as he travels the world, visiting natural disasters sites or places where earthquake risk is high. As CEO of the structural engineering company Miyamoto International, Kit is dedicated to making the world a better place. “Our responsibility as engineers is to make buildings safer by sharing what we know around the world.” Subscribe to his blog below and join his journey to save lives and impact economies.
Having problems viewing this video? Click Here to watch on Youtube.
In collaboration with UNICEF and the Haiti Ministry of Education, Miyamoto International has engineered and is managing the construction of 14 school campuses in Haiti. These schools are located in extremely remote areas where we’re using innovative steel-frame systems, the first of their kind produced and constructed by Haitian contractors. These systems make it easy rebuild quake-damaged or destroyed schools more quickly while maintaining the highest degree of quality control.
After watching the video, fill out the form to the right on his blog to get future travel updates.
Note: This video contains close captioning in French and English.
Je viens juste de terminer mon discours prononçer à l’Hôtel Kinam de Port-au-Prince, Haïti. Le public m’a chaudement applaudi. Je me suis senti bien, chauffé a blanc. J’avais parlé devant plus de 100 participants, y compris le MTPTC (le Ministère des Travaux publics Transport et Communication Haïtien) des ingénieurs, des directeurs de ministères, des partenaires d’organisation non gouvernementale (ONG) et des médias. Cet événement devait en effet célébrer les réalisations des ingénieurs du MTPTC suite au tremblement de terre de 2010. …Read More
Nous avons évalué chaque maison et marqué avec une étiquette verte, jaune ou rouge, et enregistré des informations structurelles et sociales détaillées en utilisant les PDA. Nous avons non seulement procédé à des tâches d’ingénierie, mais nous sommes également devenus des conseillers et des travailleurs sociaux. Les gens ont commencé à retourner dans leurs maisons respectives grace au plan de sécurité etabli, celles étiquetées en vert. La population des camps temporaires a ainsi diminué à 700 000 personnes à la fin de 2010. …Read More
Croyez-moi, c’était pénible. Mais en retrospect, c’était une des meilleures décisions que nous ayons jamais prises. Nous avions sélectionné 16 entrepreneurs et leur avions formé dans la technologie et les affaires. Nous avions commandé des matériaux auprès de fournisseurs-Haïtiens locaux. …Read More
The 7.0-magnitude 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, killing more than 300,000 and destroying 280,000 buildings, also left many children without schools. Days later, Miyamoto International arrived in Haiti to help, ultimately creating Miyamoto Global Disaster Relief, a nonprofit to provide disaster mitigation and reconstruction following catastrophic disasters where usual funding source doesn’t exist. …Read More
I attended the tsunami-themed Pacem in Maribus Conference in Thailand where I was slated to be one of the keynote speakers. Thailand is especially interested in tsunamis after its Andaman Coast was ravaged by a particularly devastating one in 2004, killing more than 8,000 people on the southern coast. Pacem in Maribus is Latin for Peace in the Ocean. The organization is an international forum on sustainable governance of the oceans with experts from countries all around the world. …Read More
Visiting the University of Philippines in Manila
I met Jolanta and Artessa for a breakfast meeting at a hotel lounge in Manila’s high-rise business district. They were the World Bank officials from D.C. — Artessa is a Filipino structural engineer who speaks with keen articulation and sense of strategic direction. I knew Jolanta from the Istanbul seismic risk-reduction project. It was considered to be one of the most successful programs organized by the World Bank and we had a small, but key, role in the project. …Read More
Thai Hotel Association: Seismic Risk
Komsarn, Elizabeth and I arrived at the office of PRE-BUILT in the humid Bangkok afternoon. PRE-BUILT is one of the premier developers slush contractors in Bangkok. They have built dozens of high rise condominium and office buildings in this expanding South East Asian city of 8 million people. Viroj, a principal of PRE-BUILT met us with his engineers and architects in the air conditioned office. We were ready to talk about how we could make it better. …Read More
July 4, 2013 Thailand – The “Safety Talk for the Hotel Industry” was held at the Asia Hotel. Many hotel owners were in attendance to understand the risks to the community they service and their investment. The event was organized and sponsored by the Association of Natural Disaster Prevention Industry (ANDPI). To start, Mr. Pran Siamwalla spoke on behalf of ANDPI on the devastation from various disasters such as the Sumatra Tsunami in 2004 – (240,000 deaths), the Nargis Cyclone in 2008 (120,000 death), Sichuan Earthquake in 2008 (80,000 deaths), the Haiti Earthquake from 2010 (316,000 deaths), the Japan Earthquake and Tsunami from 2011 (23,000 deaths), Hurricane Sandy in 2012 (285 deaths) and the local recent disasters: Thailand Drought 2013 and the floods from 2011. …Read More
We flew from Bangkok to Yangon, Myanmar on Monday morning. Once there we were greeted by Twe Twe and Nang. They took us to lunch before visiting the Myanmar Engineering Society. We stopped at a local place, they let me sample the goat brains to see if I would like it as my main course. It seemed every meal we had during this trip was accompanied with mango, which was great for an avid fruit eater like myself. The mango I had today was sweet and had hints of mint in the flavor. …Read More