Comparison of Seismic Vulnerability of Buildings before and after 2005 Kashmir Earthquake

On 8 October 2005, one of the most destructive earthquakes ever to strike Pakistan occurred in the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP in northern Pakistan (Figure 1). The earthquake occurred at 8:50 a.m. local time on a Saturday morning when all the businesses, schools, and government offices were open. The earthquake had a magnitude of 7.6 with a depth of 26 km (U.S. Geological Survey, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqinthenews/2005/usdyae/). Damage was widespread over a region of almost 30,000 km2. The total economic loss due to damage and destruction is estimated to be about U.S. $5 billion (Asian Development Bank and World Bank, 2005). More than 73,000 people lost their lives, with another 128,000 people injured during the earthquake (according to the National Disaster Management Authority of Pakistan (NDMA 2007, http://ndma.gov.pk). The human deaths, destruction of houses, and direct and indirect economic losses during the 2005 Kashmir earthquake caused a major setback to the region's development. Figure 1. ▴ Location of scenarios and affected areas. A) Rectangle shows the location of the affected area of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. B) presents the zoomed image with administrative boundaries; stars show the locations of scenarios. This article presents an overview of the development of the seismic zoning maps and the Building Codes of Pakistan. Furthermore, we present results of a field survey carried out in Muzaffarabad city in 2007 in Geographical Information System (GIS) format. We performed scenario studies in the affected areas to estimate the loss associated with a single earthquake, taking into account the vulnerability of building stock before and after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. The purpose of our work is to provide information about the vulnerability of buildings before and after the earthquake and reconstruction. The scenario studies assess and map the seismic risk in terms of …