Evaluation of the seismic risk of the unreinforced masonry building stock in Antioquia, Colombia

Abstract

This paper presents the development of an exposure model for the residential building stock in Antioquia (the second most populated Department of Colombia), the development of fragility functions for unreinforced masonry buildings, and estimation of building damage for two possible seismic events. Both the exposure and fragility models are publically available and can be used to calculate damage and losses due to single events, or probabilistic seismic hazard. The exposure model includes information regarding the total built-up area, number of buildings and inhabitants, building class, and replacement cost. The methodology used for the creation of the exposure model was based on available cadastral information, survey data, and expert judgment. Fragility functions were derived using nonlinear time history analyses on single-degree-of-freedom oscillators, for unreinforced masonry structures which represent more than 60% of the building stock in the region. Both seismic scenarios indicate that an event corresponding to a return period of 500 years located within the region of interest would cause slight or moderate damage to nearly 95 thousand structures, and about 32 thousand would have severe damage or collapse. This study was developed as part of the South America Risk Assessment project, supported by the Global Earthquake Model and SwissRe Foundation. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.