Airport Opens Earthquake-Safe Terminal

The world's largest earthquake-safe building has opened in Istanbul, Turkey.

The new international terminal at the Sabiha Gokcen Airport can withstand an earthquake up to 8.0 on the Richter scale because it doesn't sit directly on the soil; it sits on 300 isolators, special bearings that move with the building during an earthquake. The bearings slow down the back and forth shaking of a quake, which minimizes damage, according to Wired.com . See a photo of the building .

"What an isolation system does is that it enables the building to move through large displacements in unison, and in doing that, you absorb earthquake energy," said Atila Zekioglu, an engineer at the firm Arup, which designed the building.

Istanbul was hit by a 7.4 quake in August 1999, which killed 17,000 people and caused billions in damage. Scientists have said that the area could see another large quake in the next 30 years.

The international terminal at the San Francisco airport and the city's Golden Gate Bridge are among the structures in this country that use isolators.