new product sprayed onto minimize earthquake damage on block

While we may hear about ways of constructing new buildings to make them earthquake-resistant, what about all the buildings that are standing already? Well, that's where a new concrete developed at Canada's University of British Columbia (UBC) comes in. Sprayed onto existing walls, it reportedly allows them to withstand tremors that would otherwise reduce them to rubble.

Known as eco-friendly ductile cementitious composite (EDCC), the concrete contains polymer-based fibres. These give it a strong-yet-malleable quality not unlike steel, which tends to flex under pressure instead of crumbling like traditional concrete.

Additionally, almost 70 percent of the cement in the material is replaced with an industrial byproduct – flyash. This is what makes it eco-friendly, as cement production is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, plus the flyash would likely otherwise end up just being dumped.