Living with Earthquakes - Earthquake Engineering for Structural Design - page 54

The 1995JapanKobeearthquake (Fig. 2.14) (Wikipedia, nd) (known also as the
Hanshin earthquake) was the most devastating earthquake ever to hit Japan. There
are many coincidences with the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Kobe is located near
the dangerous intersection of three tectonic plates: the Pacific, Eurasian and
Philippine, but the earthquake occurred on an unknown secondary fault with the
epicenter on the Northern end of Awaji Island. The proximity of the epicenter (20
km away from the city of Kobe), and the propagation of rupture directly beneath
the highly populated region, help to explain the high level of destruction. In
addition, the effects of post-earthquake fire and liquefaction strongly contributed to
produce a very high level of damage. The same damage to steel connections as in
the case of the Northridge earthquake was noticed, indicating that welded
connections were one of the weakest locations in steel moment frames.
The damage of highways was the most impressive image of this earthquake: ten
spans of the Hanshin Expressway Route 43 in three locations in Kobe and
Nishinomiya were knocked down. The Kobe earthquake was listed in the Guinness
Book of Records as the costliestnatural disasterto befall any oneCountry .
The Northern part of Anatolia was stuck by the 1999 Izmit earthquake (Fig.
2.15) (Wikipedia, nd) (also called the Kocaeli earthquake), which can be
considered among the largest seismic events to have occurred in the Eastern
Mediterranean Basin during the last century, due to the number of fatalities and
damage. The rupture of the Anatolian fault (with similarities with the San Andreas
US fault) has the length of 145 km in a zone with a population of 20 million
inhabitants (one third of Turkey's total population) and encompassed nearly half
Intraplate
strike-slip
fault
(a)
Figure 2.14 (continues)