In November 2012 EEFIT launched its first ever return mission to an earthquake affected site. The L’Aquila Earthquake site was chosen as this is a recent European event of interest to the UK and European earthquake engineering community. The main aims of this return mission were to document the earthquake recovery process and this paper presents an overview of the post-disaster...
An entry in the Tarikh-i-Hassan records that in 883 AD during the reign of King Avantivarman (855–883) an earthquake in Kashmir triggered a landslide that impounded the River Jhelum and flooded the Kashmir Valley. Kalhana’s Rajatarangini provides abundant details about how the ninth century engineer Suyya both cleared the natural dam, drained the valley and instituted numerous...
The Tyrrhenian portion of the Calabria region (southern Italy) is particularly prone to landslides as a consequence of intense morphodynamic processes. These processes affect the slopes that are composed of highly jointed metamorphic rock masses. Moreover, the frequent intense rainfalls and the up to Mw 7.0 regional earthquakes represent the main landslide triggering factors. An...
The present paper investigates the coupled effect of the supporting soil flexibility and pounding between neighbouring, insufficiently separated equal height buildings under earthquake excitation. Two adjacent three-storey structures, modelled as inelastic lumped mass systems with different structural characteristics, have been considered in the study. The models have been...
A series of earthquakes, the highest of magnitude \(\text{ M }_\mathrm{w}\) 5.9, hit a portion of the Po Valley in Northern Italy, which was only recently classified as seismic. The paper reports the findings and the lessons learnt from a preliminary field survey which was conducted immediately after the second event. As a result of the economic attitude of the affected area, and...
The work of John Milne, the centenary of whose death is marked in 2013, has had a large impact in the development in global seismology. On his return from Japan to England in 1895, he established for the first time a global earthquake recording network, centred on his observatory at Shide, Isle of Wight. His composite bulletins, the “Shide Circulars” developed, in the twentieth...
Sadly, at the final phase of all these preparations for Vol.11 N.1, our very dear and very distinguished Editorial Board Member Prof. Nicholas Ambraseys passed away on December 28, 2012 at the age of 83. Prof. Ambraseys played a very positive and crucial role in the initiation of the Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering ten years ago. He attended the EAEE Executive Committee...
Usually rockbursts from underground mining induce minor quakes of MM intensity up to V. Sometimes however the surface tremors reach level of MM epicentral intensity I 0 = VI to VIII. Since a fast industrial development often takes place in the mining areas then some seismic design rules for new buildings are needed. The main obstacle is then lack of respective design response...
The M w = 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake of May 12, 2008, caused destruction over a wide area. The earthquake cost more than 69,000 lives and the damage is reported to have left more than 5 million people homeless. It is estimated that 5.36 million buildings were destroyed and 21 million buildings were damaged in Sichuan and the nearby provinces. Economic losses due to the event are...