An application of EMS98 in a medium-sized city: The case of L’Aquila (Central Italy) after the April 6, 2009 Mw 6.3 earthquake

Abstract

This paper describes the damage survey in the city of L'Aquila after the 6 April 2009 earthquake. The earthquake, whose magnitude and intensity reached Mw = 6.3 and Imax = 9-10 MCS, struck the Abruzzi region of Central Italy producing severe damage in L'Aquila and in many villages along the Middle Aterno River valley. After the event, a building-to-building survey was performed in L'Aquila downtown aiming to collect data in order to perform a strict evaluation of the damage. The survey was carried out under the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS98) to evaluate the local macroseismic intensity. This damage survey represents the most complex application of the EMS98 in Italy since it became effective. More than 1,700 buildings (99% of the building stock) were taken into account during the survey at L'Aquila downtown, highlighting the difficult application of the macroseismic scale in a large urban context. The EMS98 revealed itself to be the best tool to perform such kind of analysis in urban settings. The complete survey displayed evidence of peculiar features in the damage distribution. Results revealed that the highest rate of collapses occurred within a delimited area of the historical centre and along the SW border of the fluvial terrace on which the city is settled. Intensity assessed for L'Aquila downtown was 8-9 EMS.

Integration of EO-based vulnerability estimation into EO-based seismic damage assessment: a case study on L’Aquila, Italy, 2009 earthquake

“…1) illustrating results of class assignments (Fig. 5) as in Table 2 compare well, in their overlap area, with a similar vulnerability assessment produced after a ground surveying by experts (Tertulliani et al 2011). This latter can be taken as a reference because inspection produces far more information on any single building than any EO-based estimation.…”

“…Finally, some parameters can be very well identified, even more easily with respect to an in situ investigation, such as the plan irregularity and the presence of adjacent buildings. In a very general sense, it is already proved that remote sensing is a useful tool for vulnerability estimation (Taubenböck et al 2007), but here the problem addressed is more specific.…”

2012 Emilia earthquake, Italy: reinforced concrete buildings response

“…FAST damage assessment procedure belongs to the wider family of vulnerability assessment methodologies based on spectral displacements (e.g., NIBS 1997NIBS , 1998NIBS , 2002Kircher et al, 1997;Erdik et al, 2004, among others). Damage states are classified according to the 1998 European Macroseismic Scale (Grunthal, 1998), similarly to other vulnerability approaches available in literature in recent years (e.g., Tertulliani et al 2011;Achs and Adam 2012, among others). Results in terms of PGA capacities for damage states (DS) influenced by infills (DS1 up to DS3) are carried out, and compared with PGA recorded in the epicentral area during the 20 th of May mainshock.…”

Assessment of a vulnerability model against post-earthquake damage data: the case study of the historic city centre of L’Aquila in Italy

“…In fact it was possible to test the model of vulnerability proposed by comparing the assessment achieved with the post-earthquake results of fitness for human habitation and with the relief of damages [6].…”