Lifeline Damage Caused In the 23 October (Mw=7.2) 2011 and 9 November (M=5.6) 2011, Van Earthquakes in Eastern Turkey

On October 23 th and November 9 th , 2011, the province of Van in Eastern Turkey was hit by two earthquakes (Mw=7.2 and M=5.6) causing damage in buildings, industrial structures and utilities damages in Van and Ercis, with nearly 700 fatalities. This paper provides a brief overview of these damages through field observations. Observed pipe breaks due to permanent ground deformations (PGD) and wave propagation (WP) effects are quantified. Comparisons are given for the estimated vs. observed repair rates for segmented and continuous pipes as per relevant codes. Results reveal that the code based repair rate formulation for buried segmented and continuous pipes is compatible with the observations.