The mission of the Learning from Earthquakes (LFE) Program is to accelerate and increase learning from earthquake-induced disasters that affect the natural, built, social and political environments worldwide.

LFE responds to earthquakes worldwide by conducting earthquake reconnaissance and disseminating products and lessons learned. LFE's earthquake response consists of:

• Establishing Virtual Clearinghouse Websites: Reconnaissance products, including webinar recordings, reports, journal papers, data, and photos, are compiled on virtual earthquake clearinghouse websites. These websites serve as a long-term archives of lessons learned from earthquakes. View sites for over 300 earthquakes in the LFE Reconnaissance Archive.
• Activating the Virtual Earthquake Response Team (VERT): Beginning in 2015, LFE formalized a virtual earthquake reconnaissance program aimed at rapidly assessing impacts of damaging earthquakes through review of news articles and social media. The Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team (VERT) provides opportunities for graduate students, early career professionals, and young faculty to be involved in post-earthquake reconnaissance. Learn More about the Virtual Earthquake Reconnaissance Team.
• Sending EERI reconnaissance teams to investigate earthquakes: Through LFE, EERI sends multi-disciplinary reconnaissance teams of earthquake risk mitigation experts to investigate earthquake impacts. Reconnaissance teams travel to earthquake-impacted areas, document important observations, and identify topics in need of follow-up research. Increasingly, LFE has focused on capturing lessons for community resilience through earthquake reconnaissance. LFE has developed a framework for resilience reconnaissance and has begun conducting follow-up reconnaissance trips months and years after damaging earthquakes. 
• Coordinating international reconnaissance teams: In addition to the LFE program, there are many related organizations and private firms that also conduct earthquake reconnaissance programs. As the number of organizations that conduct reconnaissance continue to increase, EERI has led the coordination of international reconnaissance efforts. This coordination fosters collaboration, reduces duplication of efforts, and helps to minimize the burden of international reconnaissance teams on local contacts in earthquake-impacted areas.
• Participating in physical clearinghouses: For earthquakes in the US, EERI provides staffing support to operate a physical clearinghouse. A physical clearinghouse is a place where field investigators can gather to share observations and coordinate with others.

More information about how EERI responds to earthquakes can be found in the Protocols for Operations of the LFE Program (PDF).

Learning from Earthquakes is a program of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and is managed by a committee of experts with extensive experience conducting earthquake reconnaissance. Meet the LFE Executive Committee Members:

More details about the committee’s charge and role can be found in the Committee Charge and Organization (PDF).

EERI (LFE) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) share responsibility under a federal post-earthquake investigation plan to manage reconnaissance efforts in the United States. EERI has primary responsibility in international earthquakes. LFE collaborates with many other partners who conduct earthquake reconnaissance around the world.

 

Organization		Country	Website
	United States Geological Survey	USA	https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/
	Federal Earthquake Management Agency	USA	https://www.fema.gov/
	National Science Foundation	USA	https://www.nsf.gov/
	National Institute of Standards and Technology	USA	https://www.nist.gov/
	Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance	USA	http://www.geerassociation.org/
	Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center	USA	http://peer.berkeley.edu/
	California Earthquake Clearinghouse	USA	http://californiaeqclearinghouse.org/
	Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team	UK	https://www.istructe.org/resources-centre/technical-topic-areas/eefit
	Sociedad Mexicana de Ingenieria Sismica	Mexico	http://www.smis.org.mx/
	Applied Technology Council	USA	https://atcouncil.org/
	Structural Engineers Association of Northern California	USA	https://www.seaonc.org/
	Structural Engineers Association of Southern California	USA	https://seaosc.org/
	National Society for Earthquake Technology	Nepal	http://www.nset.org.np/nset2012/
	New Zealand Society of Earthquake Engineering	New Zealand	http://www.nzsee.org.nz/
	GNS Science	New Zealand	https://www.gns.cri.nz/
	Quake Core	New Zealand	http://www.quakecore.nz/
	EUCENTRE	Italy	http://www.eucentre.it/
	ReLUIS	Italy	http://www.reluis.it/
	Disaster Prevention Research Institute, Kyoto	Japan	http://www.dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
	National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED)	Japan	http://www.bosai.go.jp/e/Col221:Col321
	Institute of Social Science	Japan	http://www.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/
	Institute of Social Safety Science	Japan	http://isss.jp.net/
	International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology	Iran	http://www.iiees.ac.ir/en/
	National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering	Taiwan	https://www.ncree.org/
	National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction	Taiwan	https://www.ncdr.nat.gov.tw/
	Asociacion Guatemalteca de Ingenieria Estructural y Sismica	Guatemala	https://www.agies.org/
	Centro de Investigacion para la Gestion Integrada del Riesgo de Desastres	Chile	http://cigiden.cl/es/
	ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Division	USA	http://www.asce.org/infrastructure-resilience/infrastructure-resilience-division/
	Disaster Research Center	USA	https://www.drc.udel.edu/
	Natural Hazards Center	USA	https://hazards.colorado.edu/
	Japan Society of Civil Engineers	Japan	http://www.jsce-int.org/
	Architectural Institute of Japan	Japan	https://www.aij.or.jp/aijhome.htm
	Center for Disaster Management and Risk Reduction	Germany	https://www.cedim.de/
	NICEE	India	https://www.nicee.org/
	American Concrete Institute	USA	https://www.concrete.org/committees/directoryofcommittees/acommitteehome.aspx?committee_code=C0013300
	Canadian Association of Earthquake Engineering	Canada	http://caee.ca/
	Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES)	Australia	http://www.aees.org.au/

LFE has supported over 80 reconnaissance teams and archived information for over 300 earthquakes in 50 countries leading to advances in Structural Engineering, Earth Sciences and Geotechnical Engineering, and Social Science. Read more about the impacts of LFE in The Learning from Earthquakes Program: A Brief Synopsis of Major Contributions (PDF).

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute has, since its inception in 1949, conducted post-earthquake investigations for the purpose of improving the science and practice of earthquake engineering and earthquake hazard reduction. In 1973, EERI formally initiated the Learning from Earthquakes (LFE) Program.

Please contact EERI LFE Program Manager, Maggie Ortiz-Millan at maggie@eeri.org with other questions related to LFE.