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The destruction of Erzurum ski-jumping complex by a landslide: evaluation of an engineering design failure

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Abstract

A number of new winter sports facilities were constructed in the city of Erzurum for 2011 FISU—Universiade Winter Games, some of which constituted the first examples in Turkey. One of those is the ski-jumping complex, which hosts 5 runways along with a cluster of structures in various sizes and annexes, complementing the runways. On the northern slope of Kiremitlik Hill, where the complex is situated, a landslide occurred on 15th July of 2014, leading into complete collapse of the runways and major damage to the entire facility. This study presents a technical summary and forensic analysis of the formation of this natural hazard to illuminate the causes that cumulatively led to this engineering failure that created a massive material loss. In this work, we investigate the issue from geological, geophysical and geotechnical perspectives to illuminate the true causes of this engineering failure. We also hope that this technical evaluation provides an example for engineers as well as public administrators not to overlook the critical ground conditions and well-established design principles of civil engineering.

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Acknowledgements

Authors would like to extend their gratitude to the General Directorate of Sports affiliated with the Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports for granting the permission to use visual materials and technical data in this study.

Funding

Not applicable (no funding).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey

    Semet Çelik, Mehmet Özyazıcıoğlu, Remzi Şahin & Habib Uysal

  2. Department of Architecture, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey

    F. Zehra Çakıcı

  3. Department of Geological Engineering, Atatürk University, Erzurum, Turkey

    Ekrem Kalkan

Authors
  1. Semet Çelik
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  2. Mehmet Özyazıcıoğlu
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  3. Remzi Şahin
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  4. Habib Uysal
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  5. F. Zehra Çakıcı
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  6. Ekrem Kalkan
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Author contributions are as in the order of names written under the title.

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Correspondence to Mehmet Özyazıcıoğlu.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Fig. 18.

Fig. 18
figure 18

The underground tomography of the slope by seismic sounding, notice the fault slip in the red circle (from Kirci and Yılmaz, 2014, courtesy of General Directorate of Sports, used with permission.)

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Çelik, S., Özyazıcıoğlu, M., Şahin, R. et al. The destruction of Erzurum ski-jumping complex by a landslide: evaluation of an engineering design failure. Nat Hazards 107, 475–496 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-04591-2

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