The record-breaking skyscraper, Taipei 101, was saved from the earthquake thanks to a maxi-sphere placed between the 87th and 92nd floors of the building, the work of a Selvazzano (Padua) firm, Fip Mec, and which was tested by Renato Vitaliani, a former professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at the University of Padua, now retired.

It is a sort of maxi pendulum, that balances the tremors, a sort of harmonic absorber that prevented the skyscraper, the 11th largest in the world, from collapsing to the ground. Vitaliani tested the work about a decade ago, 'certifying' the functioning of the huge 660-ton steel sphere, capable of balancing seismic tremors and strong gusts of wind, which was placed precisely on top of Taipei 101, 508 meters above Taiwan.

The Tuned Mass Damper installed inside the skyscraper is the largest in the world, a kind of harmonic absorber that prevents structural failure in the event of high tremors.

"Fip of Padua has been making earthquake-resistant devices that have been the most advanced techniques for safeguarding bridges and buildings since 1974," he says. "For Taipei 101, they made the viscous sphere damper, and I tested it. The building tilted but still withstood the incredible shock wave of the earth tremor. "In my opinion, from a first analysis," Vitaliani explains, "it tilted due to the liquefaction of the ground" .

After the first techniques used in the 1950s in Japan "by compacting the ground and then putting gravel on it, and so the building 'slid' on top of it, now there are insulators," the Padua professor points out, "that are more performing and are put under the pillars and can be made of neoprene or the double pendulum that Fip first experimented with using it for the L'Aquila earthquake.

A pendulum, then, which, as in Taipei, acts "in phase opposition to the oscillations induced by the tower and thus greatly diminishes them. Around it there are energy dissipators, damping systems," Vitaliani adds, "that stop the pendulum when the earthquake ends to avoid damage to the structure. In other words, the 5.5-meter-diameter sphere formed by 41 disks and supported by eight hydraulic pumps counterbalances the oscillations, as it did during its construction, when it withstood a magnitude 6.8 quake.