Wanganui is to be one of the stakeholders in a five-year national study on how to cope with earthquakes.
Auckland University's Jason Ingham was in town on June 26 to ask the opinion of the city's Earthquake-prone Buildings Community Taskforce on research priorities. Professor Ingham is handling the buildings side of Quake CoRE, a research programme hosted by Canterbury University.
He said Wanganui would make use of the findings, had been active on earthquake-prone buildings and had made submissions on the subject.
His research team used one of David Corney's Victoria Ave buildings to test the ability of wooden floors and X-shaped metal braces to hold unreinforced brick buildings together under extreme shaking. The results formed part of six seminars given nationwide.
Professor Ingham would like to do more testing in Wanganui, especially on the ability of canopies to protect people below from falling masonry. But he said that would need more funding.