Structural damage evaluation of mosques and minarets in Adıyaman due to the 06 February 2023 Kahramanmaraş earthquakes

Abstract

This paper evaluates the failures of masonry and RC minarets and mosques during the February 06, 2023, Kahramanmaraş earthquakes. Two big independent earthquakes (Mw = 7.7 and Mw = 7.6), which can be called the disaster of the century for Turkey and occurred at nine-hour intervals, caused a lot of loss of life and destruction in the region where approximately 16% of the country's population lived. It has been observed that the accelerations obtained from many stations exceed the response spectrum values predicted by the Turkish Building Earthquake Code (TBEC). Numerous aftershocks occurred after the earthquakes. The main purpose of the study is to investigate the field and evaluate the structural damages of 27 different mosques and minarets in Adıyaman province, which is one of the provinces with significant losses after these earthquakes and is located on the Eastern Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ). Significant structural damage and total collapses occurred in mosques and minarets, which were built in masonry and reinforced concrete style, as in other types of structures. However, due to the occurrence time of the earthquakes, no loss of life caused by these structures was experienced. Very few of the mosques and minarets examined in this study behaved like earthquake-resistant structures without any damage. As a result of the field investigations, the main reason for the damages in such structures is that they were built by local masters without any engineering service.