Earthquake scientists and engineers from the Pacific Rim will gather in Sydney this week to share information on mitigating disasters such as the Christchurch earthquake.

The 10th Pacific Conference on Earthquake Engineering will be held at the Menzies hotel on Friday and Saturday. 

The Australian Earthquake Engineering Society and the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering are hosting the event, themed Building an Earthquake-Resilient Pacific.

The Pacific is home to nearly all the world’s subduction zones – points in the Earth’s crust where tectonic plates meet – and is subject to the most frequent, largest quakes.

Masayoshi Nakashima from the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University will speak on lessons from recent earthquakes and new initiatives towards more resilience.

Organisers say most people do not realise an earthquake of the magnitude of the 2011 Christchurch event occurs in Australia on average every 10 years. 

Experts warn a quake of that magnitude would be devastating, given few modern buildings here are designed to adequately resist the ground motion, with old buildings particularly at risk.

They say mitigation through seismic hazard maps and building codes is less costly than disaster response and recovery.

For more information, contact Sharon Anderson at pcee@aees.org.au.