EUROPEAN MACROSEISMIC SCALE 1998 (EMS-98) APPLICATION TO THE TARGET REGION OF SERAMAR PROJECT MIRRORING THE 2023 EARTHQUAKE SEQUENCE

Abstract

The description of building vulnerability and reliable damage prognoses for different impact levels are the key elements for seismic risk studies, especially in the case of the assessment of a whole building stock. Within the different phases of the Turkish–German joint research project on Seismic Risk Assessment and Mitigation in the Antakya–Maras, Region – SERAMAR, the region’s specific earthquake hazard and fault situation were assessed; the vulnerability of the building stock was assigned by street view inspection based on European Macroseismic Scale 1998 (EMS-98). Assigned vulnerability classes recognize structural particularities and design defects within optimistic, pessimistic and most likely scenarios. In addition, the social vulnerability and resilience to earthquake disasters have been studied and could be overlapped to the damage prognosis as the major outcome of intensity based scenarios assuming the epicenter close to the city center or along existing fault lines. The ancient city of Antakya, also known as the historic Antioch on the Orontes, lies in the southernmost tip of Turkey, and its development has extended over an alluvial plain through which the river Asi flows. The building damage and casualties of several different intensities of earthquake scenarios had been estimated for the purpose of qualified planning decisions by regional authorities. Judging from historical precedence, major earthquakes on the branch of the Dead Sea–East Anatolian fault system have a real potential for occurrence in the city. The devastating February 2023 Kahramanmaras earthquake sequence affecting Turkey and Syria caused tremendous damage within the Antakya region and especially to the target region of SERAMAR project where a detailed survey of the building stock has been performed. For the first time, such a unique database and the previously derived scenarios can be validated. The paper mirrors the results of the SERAMAR project in the light of the shaking effects of the February 2023 earthquake sequence. Aspects like assignment of EMS-Intensity in case of cascading events, the adoption of shake maps calibrated to the observation and the reliability of risk studies will be addressed. Focusing on previously instrumented and numerically investigated buildings, representative RC and masonry types are considered enabling the comparison to existing fragility functions. On this basis, the differences between empirical and analytical damage prognosis are discussed. © 2024, International Association for Earthquake Engineering. All rights reserved.