Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
Learning From Earthquakes

Seismic Hazard and Common Building Types

February 7, 2018

Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team (VERT) Summary by Deepak Pant.

                                                                                         

Seismo map 2

                                                                                                                                               
  Figure 1. Seismic Hazard map of Nepal showing bedrock peak ground horizontal acceleration countours in gals for 500 years return period (Source: National Seismological Center, Nepal) (from Wijeyewickrema et al. 2011).   
     
     

BldgTypes 2

Figure 2. (a) District-wise distribution of builidings and (b) building types in Nepal (CBS, 2012) (from Chaulagain et al. 2015)

 


Note: BM/SM: mud-bonded brick/stone masonry (common all over the country); W: wooden (popular in southern part); BC/SC: cement-bonded bricks/stone masonry (mainly in southern part and Kathmandu); RCC: reinforced concrete (common new construction in municipalities); A: other; mainly adobe masonry.

 

Curated topics from the April 25, 2015, Nepal Earthquake to help inform reconnaissance activities, identify impacted regions, and help document the timeline of earthquake response/recovery.

Information on design codes and construction practices from the April 25, 2015, Nepal earthquake.