Earthquake Engineering Research Institute
Learning From Earthquakes

Photos of Building Damage

Figure 1. Close-up view of severely damaged. Figure 2. Christchurch Catedral- Destruction of the power. Figure 3. Christchurch Catedral- destruction of the stone masonry tower.             Figure 4. Close-up view of strengthened gable wall that survived the shaking. Figure 5. Content damage. Figure 6. Damage to reinforced concrete block masonry building.       […]

Documenting the Performance of Retrofitted URM Buildings

In that process dozens of additional buildings were added to the list of roughly 60 buildings that appeared to have some seismic improvements visible from the exterior, or that, by word of mouth, were reportedly partially or systematically (completely) retrofitted at some time in their life. The range of partial retrofits may be from the […]

Reports from the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission

Read the Reports: The Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission – Final Report There are also many technical reports available on this website, written by EERI members and colleagues. These technical reports discuss various structural and geotechnical engineering issues.

Observations from the EERI Team

  Figure 1. Pyne Gould collapsed. Figure 2. Structural failure in columns.           Day 1: After Triage and Observations Today I helped with the triage of buildings in the North-East Quadrant of the CBD (approximately 20+ blocks).  The goal was to identify any buildings where there may still be people trapped […]

Observations from the EERI Reconnaissance Team

The goal is to begin opening downtown sections of the Christchurch Business District (CBD) and to give the government a clear idea of the status of all the buildings. I was teamed with Fred Turner, Roberto Leon and Bob Gray who was our New Zealand CPEng. We also had two urban search and rescue personnel, […]

Observations from the EERI Team

First, of course, it is the normal process that the Search and Rescue (SAR)  folks have to rescue people who are trapped and then do the hard job of finding and recovering those who perished. Second, the City with volunteer engineers do level 1 (exterior) inspections for tagging and then come back for level 2 […]