Performance of RC buildings in the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes

Abstract

The 2023 Mw 7.7-7.8 Turkey-Syria earthquakes were devastating events that resulted in widespread damage throughout several regions of western Turkey. In March 2023, the Architectural Institute of Japan deployed a team of 13 Japanese researchers, accompanied by 16 Turkish researchers to investigate the reinforced concrete building damage observed throughout the heavily damaged regions of Hatay, Kahramanmaras, Gaziantep, Adiyaman and Malatya. The group undertook a generic widespread damage observations targeting high building volumes, as well as detailed investigation of 25 buildings. In the detailed assessment, building plan sketches, member size measurements, visual damage assessments and microtremor measurements were recorded. The Japanese damage assessment methodology was used to calculate the seismic residual capacity ratio of each building using this information. In this paper the results the detailed assessment are reported. Additionally, commonly observed building construction characteristics and reinforcement detailing are reported and compared to standards and practices in New Zealand.