Earthquakes- Consequences and Response

Lodi SH*, Rafeeqi SFA**

* Professor, ** Professor and Chairman Department of Civil Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan

ABSTRACT Human Response to natural hazards and disasters has always been a subject of intense investigation and study. Historically earthquakes are supposed to be one of the major natural hazards that have caused devastation in terms of high number of human lives, wide spread building and infrastructure failures and sufferings, as remains of an earthquake. Many areas of Pakistan lie in seismic risk zones and the recent earthquake of January 2001 at Bhuj have made it all more important for us to direct our efforts toward mitigation. The historical perspective which led to the establishment of Cowasjee Earthquake Study Centre NED (CESNED), and the role played to combat this natural hazard are highlighted in this write up. INTRODUCTION Human response to natural hazards and disasters has always been a subject of intense investigation and study. Most of the time the effort is independent in the sense that professionals of varied fields and disciplines, work within the confines of their own field, and an additional work is then needed to accumulate the work to present it in a collective manner to elaborate the global view. While it is commendable that the professionals are well aware of their responsibilities, however, natural hazards need to be dealt with global perspective. Fortunately in the developed world it is not much difficult to find a platform from where the accumulated work could be formulated with global perspectives, and present the research and research needs within the broader context, while it is non- existent in the developing world. The other objective of such an effort is to provide the nonengineering or non-professional audience with a fuller appreciation of the context within which such professional practice is conducted i.e. how theory and precedents are integrated to determine accepted practice. Such a practice is also non-existent in most of the countries of developing world specially Pakistan. Historically Earthquakes are supposed to be one of the major natural hazards that have caused devastation in terms of high number of human loss, wide spread building and infrastructure failures and sufferings as remains of an earthquake. Only to cite few examples from history, from 1925 to 1984 in Turkey only, over 57,000 lives were lost and the damage to infrastructure was 65% of the damages caused by other natural disaster1. Dinar earthquake of October 1995 and Kocaeli earthquake of August 1999 added 18,000 deaths and 45,000 injuries to the list, and displaced more than 250,000 people2,3. Some of the greatest earthquakes in the world with magnitude greater than 8.0 occurred in a short span of 50 years in Indian Subcontinent: Assam earthquake of 1997

(magnitude 8.7), Kangra earthquake of 1905 (magnitude 8.6), Bihar-Nepal earthquake of 1934 (magnitude 8.4) and the Assam-Tibet earthquake of 1950 (magnitude 8.7), not to forget the Kutch earthquake of 1819 having 8.3 magnitude, which caused ground motion which was perceptible as far as Calcutta4. Kutch earthquake caused a fault scrap of about 26 km long and about 3m high, which later was to be, remembered as famous Allah Bund now in Pakistan. Kutch being far away from the plate boundaries, this earthquake is one of the largest intra-plate earthquakes to have occurred in the world4. In recent years the damaging earthquakes, which hit Indian part of the Sub-Continent were rather moderate with magnitude 6-7, which includes Koyna earthquake of 1967, Bihar-Nipal earthquake of 1988, Ultarkashi earthquake of 1991, Killari (Latur) earthquake of 1993 and Jabalpur earthquake of 19974. These earthquakes not only killed almost 11,000 people but injured about 15,000 and damaged over 0.1 million houses.5,6,7,8 In September 1999 an earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck central Taiwan, killing 2400 people and accumulating damages of the tune of US $20 to 30 billions9. In recent years, at each of such incident there had been tremendous efforts to learn from such happenings and formulate guiding principles to mitigate its effect either independently, or in a collaborative manner to combat any future happening. This effort is an ongoing process and is witnessed all across the globe, however, it is unfortunate that not much is done in this part of the world. Many areas of Pakistan lie in seismic risk zones and one can still remember the devastating Quetta earthquake of magnitude 7.5, which killed as many as 25,000 people in 1935. Pakistan has experienced about 18 lethal earthquake since year 1900 and the total fatalities reported are about 61,000.10 Kazmi11 have presented a map highlighting the active faults and probable lineaments in Pakistan, Figure. 1. Loya et al12 described that geologically Pakistan is characterized by conspicuous tectonic features, and can be divided into six major geological units: HimalayanKarakoram Northern Collision Zone; Western Rifted Margin of Peninsular Shield; North-South Trending Fold-Thrust Belt of Mountain Ranges; Chagai-Raskoh Volcanic Arch; Makran Flysch Basin and Submarine Feature of the Arabian Sea, Figure. 2 and Figure. 3.

Figure. 1. Active faults and probable lineaments in Pakistan (after ref. 12).

Figure. 2. Salient tectonic features of Pakistan (after ref. 12).

Figure. 3. Tectonic features of Pakistan (after ref. 12). On 26th January 2001, a devastating earthquake of magnitude 7.7 hit the western Indian state of Gujarat. The earthquake lasted 45 seconds. The epicentre was located near the town of Bhuj in the Runn of Kutch area, a remote and marshy region about 65 miles north-east of Jamnagar and 180 miles South-east of Hyderabad, Pakistan. Ahmedabad, located 275 miles away from epicentre was severely affected. Some of the statistics of this earthquake are reported in Reference 13, however, 20,005 human lives were lost in Gujarat, about 166,000 injured where 20,717 were serious injuries, apart from wide spread damage to the infrastructure facilities and property. Although the shocks of the earthquake were felt across Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, however, no damage in terms of loss of lives in comparison to India was witnessed in Pakistan. Widespread liquefaction and lateral spreading of soil have, however, been reported in many parts of the South-East Sind (Badin, Taluka Mithi, Taulka Nangarparkar of Tharparkur). Several feet wide craters appeared/ developed on and around Badin-Khadan road. A factory collapsed, a Minaret of a shrine came down in Badin area and a four storied building collapsed in Hyderabad. Samad14 while discussing the mechanism of earthquake of January 26, surmise that rocks in the region are primarily Jurassic to cretaceous age sedimentary and volcanic rocks. The Earthquakes in India and Pakistan are the result of the compression thrust of Eurasian Plate with Indian Plate .The neotectonic geology of Kutch consists of a series of folds and faults with a general WNW/ESE trend. The region is still in a state of compression from India/Asian collision stresses, Figure . 4.

Figure. 4. Region in a state of compression from Indian/ Asian collision stresses (after ref. 14). Figure. 5, shows some of the faults mapped by Malik et al 2000. The Kutch region appears to be one area where above-normal seismicity rates exist. It will be interesting to discover whether a correspondingly higher than normal strain-rate prevails in the region and if so why? Allah Bund fault is close to eastern boarder and if this fault extends westward due to tectonic movement than it pose serious consequences for earthquake hazard in Karachi.

Figure.5. Seismicity of Kutch in last 200 years from 1668-1997 (after ref. 14). Similarities as shown in Plate. 1 clearly demonstrates that had these areas of Badin habited likewise an urban city, many lives would have been lost and wide spread damage would have occurred. The incident of 26th January 2002 suggests that somewhere someone has to start working on the lines on which almost all other nations have already been working. In this part of the world most of the professionals have to rely on information collected by someone else, they have to rely on codes, specifications, guidance and procedures developed by the developed world. In many circumstances this may work and this state of affairs although may not be harmful at the macroscopic level, however, at microscopic level they may lead to serious flaws. These flaws arise due to the basic erroneous understanding of adoption rather than adaptation. Even if adaptive models are developed, they are most of the time left on ones own choice, without noticing that the document in hand is not an effort of an individual but a collective effort of a multidisciplinary core group, having representatives from almost all professional sectors and Government agencies. Keeping in view the above state of affairs, the senior faculty members of Department of Civil Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, some few years ago embarked on a mission of establishing an Earthquake Engineering Resource Centre through a self

devised agenda of their own. The task force was working on various aspects of mitigation for almost last ten years. Even the PhD of two of the faculty members was designed keeping in view the mitigation objective. A number of undergraduate projects were completed on the same theme. It was planned to disclose the achievements at some suitable occasion, after a few more years of work, but as a result of the consequences of Earthquake of 2001, it was decided to bring the centre to the limelight to take up the task of MITIGATION through awareness and preparedness of the common people. Earthquake 2001 provided the opportunity to formally launch the opening of Earthquake Engineering Study Centre at Department of Civil Engineering later to be known as Cowasjee Earthquake Study Centre NED (CESNED).

Liquefaction damages in Badin, Pakistan.

Land damaged due liquefaction in Gujrat, India.

Craters in land due to liquefaction in Badin

Similar craters in Gujarat, India.

Typical pan cake failure of Ghousia Building, Hyderabad, Pakistan.

Similar failure of four storied building in Gujarat, India.

Plate. 1. Similarities of damages during earthquake 2001 in Pakistan and India (after ref. 13).
NEED FOR SUCH A CENTRE The need for such establishment of CESNED was felt due to the following reasons: Non-existence of culture to identify areas of indigenous research; Non-existence of a focal point to accumulate and analyse data and a clearinghouse to disseminate knowledge regarding earthquakes in a scientific manner; Non-existence of a platform to present indigenous research and research needs within a broader context; Absence of culture for a collective effort of multi disciplinary core group; Non-availability of platform to provide non-engineering and non-professional audience with a fuller appreciation of context within which such professional practice is conducted. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF COWASJEE EARTHQUAKE STUDY CENTRE AT NED (CESNED) When the idea was floated the main objectives of CESNED were conceived to be as follows: 1. CESNED shall be a non-profit centre which shall house national and global data pertaining to earthquakes and shall act as a clearing house for disseminating accumulated knowledge in a prescribed manner;

2. CESNED should have expertise in all areas of pre and post disaster mitigation; 3. CESNED should have the capacity and capability to identify research needs and conduct such research in collaboration with other organization if needed; 4. CESNED should respond to emergency needs and should be able to provide guiding principles for post-disaster mitigation, to the agencies and authorities. METHODOLOGY ADOPTED TO ACHIEVE THE DESIRED OBJECTIVES The Department was of the opinion that the centre should formally be launched after completing the prerequisites to a desired level, therefore to achieve this strenuous task, the Department decided to follow a methodology which eventually could lead to the establishment of the centre on firm foundation. As the main theme was based on the mitigation aspects of the disaster, which actually encompasses and includes all what most of the time is done by specialized groups of one area, it is pertinent to present the flow chart which describes various aspects of Mitigation, Figure. 6. As is evident from the flow chart, Figure. 6, that to achieve expertise in different aspects of mitigation, simultaneous efforts had to be done in varied areas. Salient features of the areas where simultaneous efforts were needed, were identified as follows: 1. to encourage faculty members to design their Ph.D. proposal in line with the objectives; 2. to encourage such final year project reports which would help in accumulating national data, needed to achieve objectives; 3. encourage faculty members to take up collaborative research studies leading to improved knowledge in related areas; 4. persuade faculty members to design and conduct experimental studies to generate understanding of mechanical properties of local building materials; 5. persuade faculty members to develop expertise in different aspects through their own resources.

As it should have been, a well planned organized campaign and sincere effort gave remarkable results, which are highlighted as follows: * Fortunately recently two of the facultys members obtained their Ph.D. in the following areas, which were in line with the set objectives: 1. Strengthening of structure 2. Constitutive modelling of reinforced concrete Both areas are of immense value to mitigation. Improved understanding of the behaviour of constituents of reinforced concrete is possible through design of numerical experiments in complex state of stress, and the centre now have the full capability to embark on research studies in this direction which could eventually lead to performance based national codes. Presently a research student is in the advanced stage of developing a numerical model for composite materials, and we are hopeful that this would lead us ahead of the frontiers of existing knowledge in the area we are working on strengthening technique in flexure has been pioneered which have opened up arenas of adaptation in variety of situations, and the developed understanding have paved way for developing theoretical guiding principles for post-disaster rehabilitation. Implication of the un-bonded ness on flexure members due to corrosion of reinforcement, and the residual flexural strength of members where part or whole of the reinforcement is exposed, can now conveniently be modelled. The advanced understanding in this area would lead to substantial saving in terms of relief of props for structure, where replacement of corroded reinforcement is needed. * Most performance codes require significant engineering input and are referred to as fully engineered and are typically restricted to more expensive urban construction. Rural areas of the third world, however, are full of marginally-engineered or nonengineered construction. Studies were conducted and data has been accumulated regarding such non-engineered construction. Mitigation models and proposal has been developed, independently and in collaboration with other organization. CESNED now has full capabilities of developing analytical models for such construction, conducting workshops on mitigation models, and transferring know how to the rural population through mobile training courses. Experimental and analytical studies have also been carried out to develop indigenous construction techniques, retrofitting and strengthening methods for ductile performance of rural structures in the event of an earthquake.

In the urban context of mitigation apart from expertise in post-disaster rehabilitation, extensive work has been carried out in accumulating research literature, findings and studies in the area of seismic evaluation of buildings, demolition, planning and designing of shelters, infrastructure and bridge monitoring maintenance. Based on the study of bridge monitoring models from year 1960 to year 2000, of Europe and USA, a bridge monitoring model Bridge Database Management System (BDMS) have been developed and is available on the desk for viewing. The model is primarily developed for monitoring of the new bridges in Karachi, but has the capability to be adopted with slight modification anywhere in the country. The model also has the capability to be enhanced according to the demands of the day. The document is for sale to organizations whether public or private. Another proposal is in the advanced stage of development for the perusal of development authorities, regarding provision of shelters in this urban metropolis. * Construction practices and materials play a vital role in seismic resistance apart from design input. While the former have already been achieved through studies on fully-engineered and non-engineered construction, the later aspect is related to the ductility requirements. Emphasis was therefore given to study of indigenous materials and provision of ductility. A research exercise was conducted in collaboration with Pakistan Steel, which is again available at the desk for viewing. The out come of the study reveals that how correct was the adopted research direction. The conclusions of the study should be an eye opener for the design engineers. The Department through extensive study has formulated research proposals on quantification of ductility, rather than relying on the insufficient premise of designing and detailing an under-reinforced section. Not only that we have doubts that the re-distribution prescribed by ACI-318 may not be applicable to the steel that we are using, we are also afraid that there are certain quarrying sites which may not fit the empirical relation for modulus of elasticity given by ACI Code which is normally followed in Pakistan. The Department, after studying the issues related to serviceability failure of one bridge in Punjab, has reasons to believe that very basic research for constituent indigenous materials is the need of the hour. CESNED has all the academic capabilities to design and conduct such research, if such funding, which may lead to procurement of, required testing equipments is available. Other allied disciplines such as transportation, environmental engineering, architecture and water resources engineering have sufficiently been supporting the objectives of the CESNED.

Many studies related to mitigation efforts, directly and indirectly are on the data bank of CESNED. More emphasis is now being laid on traffic delays due to route alignments, signals, and round about and broken roads, which hampers the mitigating effort. Faculty members have produced papers that are read at National/International conferences, and published in reputed Journals, emphasizing the need of such studies. The Department of Architecture and Department of Environmental Engineering are another valuable source of supporting the objectives of CESNED and efforts are in progress to identify research areas that may enhance the mitigation models. If Figure. 6 were now viewed in conjunction with Table-1, it would be evident that CESNED is fully capable of handling almost all issues related to mitigation and has now been formally launched and is fully operational, and is committed to its objectives. University resources, whatever they may be, are insufficient to meet the funding requirement of a centre, which has embarked on a wholesome task. COWASJEE FOUNDATION has provided generous initial funding and efforts are underway to generate more funds. It does not have to be told that in developed world such centres have Federal Support, we therefore would also like to request Federal Government to support CESNED, which in my opinion is the only centre in Pakistan, which started formal functioning after completing the pre-requisites and establishing itself on firm grounds. CESNED is now fully functional and a bi-annual newsletter is its regular feature. Two issues of the newsletter have already been published where Mitigation is kept as the main theme. Table-1. Role of different groups in mitigation earthquake (Developed at CESNED) NON-PROFESSIONAL GROUPS

PRE-DISASTER
Promoting awareness and preparedness programs for general public Guiding government agencies regarding hurdles, ground realities Critical reviews on research directions education and course of actions National disaster preparedness plans Code and specification enforcement Building and infra-structure stock

POST-DISASTER
Special news bulletins and programs related to happenings Highlights of mitigation techniques Realistic reporting and highly professional journalism Developing contingency plans for immediate and long term relief Co-ordination between National

Media

Government

Organization And Agencies

NGOs

Defense Rescue Workers

management Collaboration with research organizations and universities Budgeting and fund raising for protection. Developing relevant data bank at local level Imparting awareness and conducting workshops and training programs Linkage with GOs and other NGOs Preparing and training for postdisaster relief operation Sharing training with civil administration

and International relief agencies Removing hurdles for immediate and emergency handling of issues

Fire fighting, controlling leakage of gases, epidemics and disease control, provision of food; water; medicine; clothes; temporary bridges, temporary roads; and temporary shelter

Engineers

Urban And Regional Planners

Doctors And Paramedics

Preparing for response to disaster Developing skills to the best of abilities Registering with local NGO or GO as trained rescue worker Developing insight into engineering aspect of earthquake resistant structures Persuading clients to protect Designing earthquake resistant structures Seismic evaluation of building and its components Improving earthquake resistance of existing buildings and infrastructure facilities Micro-zoning and vulnerability mapping Population density optimization Protection strategies for infrastructure facilities and transportation Developing national data on medical resources Categorizing nodes according to resources Training allied professionals for preparedness and formulation of preparedness module Linkage with international organization for relief Strengthening understanding of regional seismicity, collecting and analyzing data and developing

Classifying damaged structures Demolition technique for structures in a progressive collapse mode Proposing choice of repair methods and strengthening techniques

Learning from disaster and updating plans

Emergent mobilization of resources Filtering effected people according to requirements and injuries Epidemic control strategies

Researchers And Academicians

modules for mitigation Developing guidelines for codes for local building materials and construction materials Updating and transferring knowledge through mid-career training programs for professionals Advising different agencies for developing contingency plans

Assessing extent of damage Learning from disaster and reconsidering research options Preparing post-disaster rehabilitation plans and imparting update information

REFERENCES 1. Yarar, R. Earthquake Behaviour of Rural Buildings in Turkey. The National Seminar on Earthquake Engineering, Turkish National Committee on Earthquake Engineering, Istanbul, Turkey, October, 1985, p. 82. 2. Wasti, S.T., Sucuoglu, H. Rehabilitation of Moderately Damaged R/C Buildings after the 1st October 1995 Dinar Earthquake. Report No: METU/EERC 99-01, Earthquake Engineering Research Centre, Middle East Technical University Ankara, April 1999, p. 114. 3. Implications for Earthquake Risk Reduction in the United States from the Kocaelli, Turkey, Earthquake of August 17, 1999. U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1193, U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado, USA, 22nd November 1999, p. 64. 4. Jain, S.K. Indian Earthquake: An overview. The Indian Concrete Journal, India, Vol.72, No.11, November 1998, pp. 555-561. 5. Thakkar, S.K. Lessons from Bihar Earthquake. The Indian Concrete Journal, India, Vol.72, No.11, November 1998, pp. 563-569. 6. Rai, D.C. Lessons from the Jabalpur Earthquake. The Indian Concrete Journal, India, Vol.72, No.11, November 1998, pp. 571-576. 7. Paul, D.K. Lessons from Uttarkashi Earthquake. The Indian Concrete Journal, India, Vol.72, No.11, November 1998, pp. 581-589. 8. Marty, C.V.R., Sinha, R. The 1993 Killari Earthquake: Engineering lessons and challenges. The Indian Concrete Journal, India, Vol.72, No.11, November 1998, pp. 591-601. 9. The Chi-Chi Taiwan Earthquake of September 21,1999 EERI Special Earthquake report, Earthquake Engineering Research Institutes Learning from Earthquake Project, National Science Foundation, U.S.A, December 1999, p. 17.

10. Non-Engineered Construction in Earthquake Zones and Earthquake Mitigation with Special Reference to Pakistan, Project Report, Department of Civil Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi Pakistan, May, 1999, p. 155. 11. Kazmi, A.H. Active Fault Systems in Pakistan. Geodynamics of Pakistan: Geological Survey of Pakistan, Quetta, p. 1979, p. 285. 12. Loya, A.R., Zaigham, N.A., and Dawood, M.H. Seismic Zoning of Karachi and Recommendation for Seismic Design of Buildings, published by Association of Consulting Engineer, Pakistan and Karachi Building Control Authority, April 2000, p. 105. 13. Some Statistics of January 26, 2001 Earthquake for India. Newsletter, Cowasjee Earthquake Study Centre NED (CESNED), Department of Civil Engineering, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan, Vol.1, Issue 2, October 2001, p. 4. 14. Khan, A.S. Influence of Local Soil Conditions on Ground Response and Damage Pattern Due to Earthquake. Seminar on Earthquake 2001, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, Pakistan, April 2001. 15. Malik, J. N., Sohoni, P.S., Merh, S.S., and Karanth, R. V.. Proceeding of the International Symposium and School on Active Faulting, Edited by Okumera, K., Goto, H. and Takada, K., edition 2000.