ABSTRACT
Earthquake engineers have a duty to draw lessons from the damaging consequences of past earthquakes, and to use their technical expertise to inform and advise decision makers of the necessary steps to avoid or reduce future damage. Close collaboration between European earthquake engineers will be needed to achieve this, particularly for solving the difficult problems associated with basin effects, megacities and the strengthening of existing buildings. An even more urgent task is to collaborate with fellow professionals in developing countries to improve the housing stock there. A new European assembly of earthquake engineers is proposed to tackle these issues, based on the Solvay Meeting of physicists.
