Abstract
On the 26th of November 2019, an earthquake of moment magnitude 6.4 struck the northwest region of Albania as the result of thrust faulting near the convergent boundary of the Africa and Eurasia plates causing widespread damage to buildings in the city of Durrës and the surrounding areas. Based on the official data from the national authorities, the earthquake caused 51 casualties and 985 million-euro losses, corresponding to 7.5% of the 2018 gross domestic product. This paper summarises field observations made by the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) after the event. The paper presents an overview of the seismological aspects of the earthquake together with a brief overview of the damage, official loss statistics and the estimated macro- and socio-economic consequences of the event. In addition, it provides a summary of the observed damage to both recent and historical buildings as well as the description of several case studies to illustrate the characteristic damage patterns observed in the main structural typologies of the Albanian building stock. These observations try to identify possible links between the observed damage patterns and the deficiencies in construction practice and use of inappropriate retrofit techniques for historical assets. As many severe damages were observed on modern buildings, this also allows the identification of some gaps and possible areas of development of the current seismic design code. In the end, the lessons learned from the field survey are resumed.
Highlights
On Saturday 21st September 2019 at 15:15 CET, an earthquake of moment magnitude (Mw) 5.6 and shallow focal depth (~ 10 km) (Bilgin and Hysenlliu 2020; USGS 2020) hit the northwest region of Albania
By assuming that a single-storey building accommodates a single dwelling, this category accounts for 50% of the 1,012,400 dwellings reported in the latest census. These single-storey buildings include unreinforced masonry (URM), confined masonry (CM) structures made of stone, or clay or silicate bricks and reinforced concrete (RC) frames with masonry infills made of lightweight clay or concrete bricks
Severe damage and partial collapse were observed on these castles and, the vulnerability of their structural components and the causes of the observed damage patterns are identified through the evaluation of their structural conditions before and after the earthquake
Summary
On Saturday 21st September 2019 at 15:15 CET, an earthquake of moment magnitude (Mw) 5.6 and shallow focal depth (~ 10 km) (Bilgin and Hysenlliu 2020; USGS 2020) hit the northwest region of Albania. The paper starts with a description of the event with reference to the region’s historical seismicity and tectonics It discusses the evolution of the seismic design codes in Albania, the Albanian building stock, the estimated losses, and the outcomes of the rapid visual survey with the aim of providing an overview of the situation at large scale after the earthquake, allowing the identification of relevant case studies. It presents field observations of a few relevant case studies that have been investigated in detail and for which damage patterns are identified and discussed in relation to the geometric and structural features observed for the damaged constructions. Further images from the field mission can be accessed from the EEFIT website
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