So we just had an earthquake! Very rare, but it does happen. This building in chapel street seems to be almost the only damage, and a freind tells me the upper floor converted recently to apartments with a new roof, and clearly the new internal wall was not attached to the external one, so no bracing. I do worry if we have a big one because we have a LOT of very tall brick and render parapets, sometimes with a rod being holding them up, but still could come down (hopefully not whole walls as happened in Christchurch in 2011, 2nd pic). But perhaps the main danger to buildings would actually be fear if a few fell down leading to sudden removal all over town. They are dangerous, but not probably as dangerous as the 5-9 storey Victorian buildings in the cbd, like Stalbridge Chambers, nothing but a pile of bricks, though they’re partly held in place by adjacent buildings. Also VERY dangerous are skyscrapers from the 50s-70s, built well before earthquake codes. Early ones like ICI are light steel frames encased in concrete, but maybe they’d bend without breaking ? while 60s-70s reinforced concrete towers were the type that collapsed completely in Christchurch, and we’ve got plenty of those. But still, a big enough one doing real damage like that is a highly unlikely event.
Storey of Melbourne 