Candlelight vigil held
Yesterday evening at 6:30 pm, the Pakistani Students Association held a candlelight vigil for victims and survivors of the October 8 7.6 magnitude earthquake that has claimed over 73,000 lives. The vigil was held in the vicinity of the new waterfall behind the Commons. The vigil, timed to mark the one-month anniversary of the quake, was held in conjunction with vigils in 28 other cities around the world.
At RPI, over 80 students attended. During the vigil, a speech was given by Mahwish Hamlani, president of PakSA, and Hamnah Siddiqui, secretary of PakSA, highlighting the effects of the tragedy, the efforts of people everywhere to relieve it, and what people can do to help as the harsh Himalayan winter approaches.
Levee findings released
Following the collapse of the levees of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, a group of researchers released their preliminary findings to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on November 2. Professor Tom Zimmie, the acting chair of civil and environmental engineering, visited New Orleans to survey the disaster as part of an investigating National Science Foundation team.
While the team felt that many of the levees and floodwalls could have performed better, they have preliminarily concluded that many levees failed for a plethora of reasons, and no one flaw or entity is responsible. Causes from soil erosion under levees to a lack of additional erosion protection around levees have been cited as causes contributing to the breaking of the levees, which left New Orleans deeply flooded for weeks.
