Lessons Learned from the 2007 Pisco Earthquake (Peru) and Recommendations for Disaster Mitigation

Abstract eng:
In August 15th, 2007, the central coast of Peru was struck by an earthquake of magnitude 7.9, which epicenter was located 60 km west of Pisco city and 150 km south of Lima (capital of Peru). Failures in most buildings made of adobe were observed. As in past earthquakes occurred in other regions of Peru, these earthen constructions showed poor structural performance and their collapse was the main cause of deaths and injuries of people. However, failures and even collapse were also evidenced in reinforced concrete structures and confined masonry structures even though they were expected to have better seismic behavior. No much attention has been paid to the failures of these structures due to the generalized failures of adobe constructions. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the causes of failure of this kind of structures. The causes of failures are not limited only to the structural design. Other reasons such as the lack of control or verification by the local government officers, the lack of preparation or actualization of professionals working in provinces of Peru, the poor quality of local labor work, bad technical advice or guidance, inappropriate materials, etc., should be considered too. In this paper, the occurrence of these failures and their causes are analyzed. From the results of these analyses, some recommendations are proposed to reduce damages on this kind of structures during future earthquakes in Peru. The conclusion and recommendation can be listed as follows: 1) To limit the height of confined masonry buildings to a maximum of four stories. In case of using hand made clay brick the height must be limited to three stories. For practical reasons 4 stories must be the maximum number of stories for hotels without elevators, even if the structure is reinforced concrete. 2) The traditional constructions like adobe building must be prohibited in seismic zone 3. For zones 1 and 2 adobe buildings of only one floor must be allowed. In general the system must not be employed to for public facilities like school, medical post, etc. 3) The transfer of technology it is not a problem of how to transmit this knowledge to the owners or people in general, the problem is how to increase the professional level of engineers that work at rural areas or far from the big cities where the actualization opportunities are few. 4) Even for engineers working at great urban areas there is a problem in the qualification level to take care of structural design. May be a system of accreditation must be implemented. In the actual system young engineers just finishing their university studies are in the same position or equally qualify than experienced engineers to assume design projects.

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