Abstract
On 26th October 2015, an Mw 7.5 earthquake struck northern Pakistan, with its epicenter located 45 km southwest of Jarm in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan. The earthquake resulted from reverse faulting at a depth of 210 km, resulting in 280 fatalities and substantial damage to some 109,123 buildings. Regional seismicity, characteristics of recorded strong motions, damage statistics, and building performance observations are presented. Earthquake damage was mostly constrained to seismic-deficient unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. Typical failure modes included toppled minarets, partial or complete out of plane collapse of URM walls, diagonal shear cracking in piers, flexural cracking in spandrels, corner damage, pounding damage, and damage due to ground settlement. The majority of human loss resulted due to failure of URM walls and subsequent roof collapse. URM buildings located in rural hilly areas closer to the epicenter suffered more intense and frequent damage than urban URM buildings located farther away in larger cities.
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Acknowledgement
The study reported herein was partially funded by the United Arab Emirates University under research grant G00001603. The authors thank Engr. Rajab Ali, Dr. Naveed Ahmad, and students of University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar, for facilitating and participating in the damage assessment surveys. Feedback and information provided by a number of building practitioners, engineers, and building owners is also gratefully acknowledged.
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Ismail, N., Khattak, N. Observed failure modes of unreinforced masonry buildings during the 2015 Hindu Kush earthquake. Earthq. Eng. Eng. Vib. 18, 301–314 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-019-0505-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11803-019-0505-x