Dive summary:

• With sensors, cameras and intermittent eyeball inspections, researchers plan to induce an "earthquake" in a two-story building that has a reinforced concrete frame and masonry walls and was badly enough damaged in a 2010 quake in El Centro, Calif., that it was slated for demolition.
• The researchers from Tufts University and the University of Texas at Arlington will document the current condition, then install an eccentric-mass shaker on the roof to generate quake-like vibrations. They will see and measure what happens.
• The structure, which may get to the bring of collapse or may go over it, was built in 1920 and is similar in materials and design to many buildings in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas and in Latin America and around the Mediterranean, the researchers say. All are vulnerable, but this is the first chance to see how they fail.

From the article:

The two-story building on West Commercial Avenue in El Centro, CA was built in the 1920s and has withstood four major earthquakes in 1940, 1979, 1987, and 2010 but it may not be standing for long. ...