Abstract
This paper outlines the seismic vulnerability of rural stone masonry buildings affected by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake sequence. Summary of field observation is presented first and empirical fragility curves are developed from the detailed damage assessment data from 603 villages in central, eastern and western Nepal. Fragility curves are developed on the basis of 665,515 building damage cases collected during the post-earthquake detailed damage assessment campaign conducted by Government of Nepal. Two sets of fragility functions are derived using peak ground acceleration and spectral acceleration at 0.3 s as the intensity measures. The sum of the results highlights that stone masonry buildings in Nepal are highly vulnerable even in the case of low to moderate ground shaking. The results further indicate that in the case of strong to major earthquakes, most of the stone masonry buildings in Nepal would sustain severe damage or collapse.
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Acknowledgements
Author would like to express sincere thanks to Steve Wesnousky, Krishna Bhetwal, Pramod Neupane, Liesl Clark, Randolph Langenbach and Krishna Devkota for their kind help during field visit conducted after the Gorkha earthquake. National Reconstruction Authority and Prakriti Sharma are acknowledged for the database and several correspondences. The author would like to acknowledge the two reviewers for the constructive and inspiring comments. Their comments have significantly improved the quality of the manuscript.
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Gautam, D. Observational fragility functions for residential stone masonry buildings in Nepal. Bull Earthquake Eng 16, 4661–4673 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-018-0372-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10518-018-0372-2