Abstract

Pakistan’s land area could face moderate to severe earthquakes. During the Oct 8, 2005, earthquake more than 1 lac lives were lost due to this major earthquake, which also caused enormous damage to property and public infrastructures. The occurrence of several devastating earthquakes in areas hitherto considered safe from earthquakes indicates that the built environment in the country is extremely fragile and our ability to prepare ourselves and effectively respond to earthquakes is inadequate. All major earthquakes establish that the casualties were caused primarily due to the collapse of buildings. This is due to the enormous challenge in improving seismic safety because of the inadequate numbers of trained and qualified civil engineers, structural engineers, architects and masons proficient in earthquake-resistant design and construction of structures. There is urgent need for imparting training in earthquake-resistant design and construction to faculty members in professional colleges, for revising the curriculum in professional courses, and for creating public awareness on seismic risk reduction features in non-engineered construction in earthquake proneareas. Earthquake near Dalbandin, Baluchistan of magnitude Mw 7.2 recorded on January 18th, 2011 and near Quetta, of magnitude Mw 6.4 on October 29th, 2008 with aftershocks, show a very high and active, seismic vulnerability of the region in recent years. After the strong setback observed in Quetta Earthquake 1935, construction work is restricted to very high seismic limits in the area. Traditionally Peak Ground Acceleration (PGA) is used in design calculations for lateral loads on structures. However alone PGA does not amply define the seismic load and modern international building codes emphasize on use of spectral acceleration values PGA is not sufficient to design or to account the emphasis of earthquake resistant structures. But such parameters don’t exist for any city of our country [1].

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