Journal of Structural Engineering No.

36-48
Vol. 36, No. 6, February - March 2010 pp. 429–432

District-wise first order seismic loss estimation to the brick masonry

buildings, in the states: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Tamil Nadu

S.R. Balasubramanian *, ∗ , K. Balaji Rao∗ , P. Vasuki∗ ,M.B. Anoop∗ , J. Daniel Ronald Joseph∗ and
Nagesh R. Iyer ∗
∗
Structural Engineering Research Centre, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR campus, Taramani, Chennai- 600 113, India.
Received 26 June 2009; Accepted 14 July 2009

In this paper a simple methodology for estimating expected, regional seismic loss to the brick masonry buildings
has been presented. The seismic loss estimation has been carried out for the districts of four states in India. This
methodology integrates the information from various sources in a systematic way. The seismic loss values obtained
would be useful in prioritising/mobilising the resources meant for earthquake risk management/relief operations etc.
It is noted that the methodology proposed can include any improvements in the knowledge.

KEYWORDS: Seismic vulnerability; regional risk analysis; expected seismic loss; brick masonry buildings.

Loss estimation due to an earthquake is one of the areas whe-
rein, a lot of effort has been devoted during the recent past,
because, it is of importance to those: who directly own/ main-
tain facilities like buildings / infrastructures; who indirect-
ly maintain such facilities (say, insurance companies); who
manage relief operations / emergency situations; who are re-
sponsible for setting up the regulations for such facilities.
‘Risk analysis’ is a well accepted methodology for making
such informed decisions in socio-economic, socio-technical
sectors. Risk analysis of structures subjected to a given ha-
zard requires a three stage approach. First, the hazard to be
quantified (either as a continuous or discrete function). Se-
cond, the vulnerability of the structure to undergo damage of
specified type/degree needs to be evaluated for a given level
of hazard. These two quantities need to be convolved in the
third stage to obtain the risk. The overall risk can be determi-
ned by summing the risks over all possible damage states of
the structure.
Earlier the authors developed a methodology for estima-
ting the expected number of unreinforced brick masonry buil-
dings that would be damaged, when exposed to earthquakes,
in Faridkot district of Punjab 1 . In this paper, a methodology
has been presented for carrying out the regional risk analy-
sis of brick masonry buildings and the same has been carried
out for different districts of four states of India (viz. Uttar
Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Tamil Nadu).
(GSI), Building Materials Technology Promotion Council
(BMTPC) etc and the same have been integrated.
1. A catalogue of earthquakes has already been prepared ba-
sed on the information from IMD, USGS etc. A total of
15,360 events over a period of January 1909 to Decem-
ber 2008 have been recorded. Out of these, the events that
have occurred over a period of 1909 to 2008 (i.e. over a
period of 100 years) have been considered in the present
analysis. It is also important to note that the after shocks
are not included in this catalogue. The catalogue contains
longitude, latitude, year-, month- and date- of occurrence,
and the moment magnitude. However, no information is
available about the focal depth.
2. Seismotectonic Atlas of India and its Environs 2 (STAI)
contains, amongst other information, information about
the focal depth of various earthquakes.
3. The Vulnerability Atlas of India 3 (VAI) is used to ob-
tain the statistics of brick masonry buildings (of A type:
un-burnt brick buildings; A+ type: un-burnt brick buil-
dings with earthquake resistance features; B type: ordina-
ry brick buildings; and B+ type: ordinary brick buildings
with earthquake resistance features) in various districts of
the four states considered. The statistics provided corre-
spond to buildings with masonry walls and are based on
2001 census.

DATA USED IN THE STUDY ASSUMPTIONS AND THE METHODOLOGY FOR

In this study, data required for estimation of expected seis- EXPECTED SEISMIC LOSS ESTIMATION
mic loss have been obtained from the authenticated sources
like Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), United States 1. Fixing the focal depth of earthquakes: Since this informa-
Geological Survey (USGS), Geological Survey of India tion is not available in the earthquake catalogue, the same
* E-mail:srbala@sercm.org
(Discussion on this article must reach the editor before May 31, 2010)

JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING VOL. 36, NO. 6, FEBRUARY - MARCH 2010 429
 is generated using STAI 2 . The STAI2 divides the country
into 43 blocks (each having its own range of latitude and
longitude). Details of earthquakes that have occurred, fo-
cal mechanism solutions for most of these events, tectonic
information have been provided in the STAI 2 . The avera-
ge focal depth of different earthquakes in each block, co-
vering the entire country, has been evaluated. In addition,
approximately 25 blocks around the border (into the other
countries such as Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Myanmar and China) of the country have been conside-
red for the analysis. Since the information on focal depth
of earthquakes in these blocks is not readily available, it
has been taken as the shallowest among those adjacent
blocks for which the average focal depth is available in
STAI2 . Thus the updated version of the earthquake cata-
logue containing the information of focal depth has been
prepared.
2. Fixing reference points: In order to carry out district-wise
risk analysis, the centroid of different districts (referred
hereinafter as ‘reference point’) has been determined by
eye judgement and is considered to represent/contain the
information about that district.
3. Sorting out the pertinent earthquakes: The historical ear-
thquakes that have occurred within a radius of 300 km
about the reference point of each district (defining the
circle of influence) have been obtained from earthquake
catalogue.
4. The earthquakes within the circle of influence have be-
en divided into five ranges (viz. Moment magnitude
< 5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8 and > 8). For each moment magnitude
range, the mean recurrence rates have been estimated as-
suming the number of earthquake occurrences in a given
range follows a Poisson process. The probability of occur-
rence of one earthquake in each range has been computed
for different reference periods.
5. For each earthquake in a given range, the PGA at the refe-
rence point has been determined using the integrated atte-
nuation relationship proposed by Gupta et al. 4 . The maxi-
mum value of PGA in a given magnitude range is assumed
to be representative of the hazard potential of earthquakes
in the respective magnitude range.
6. Using these representative PGA values, the average loss
ratio (in percentage) for buildings of different types are
obtained from the vulnerability functions provided in
Arya5 (Fig 1). These are weighted by the number of buil-
dings of given type at the reference point to estimate the
total number of buildings that would have got damaged.
100
Average loss Ratio (in %)
80
A type
60
B type A + type
40 B + type
20
0 of an earthquake (except ‘Sangrur district’ of Punjab wherein
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
PGA (in g)
Fig. 1 Vulnerability function (from Arya5 )
430 JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING VOL. 36, NO. 6, FEBRUARY - MARCH 2010
7. The risk at the reference point computed at step 5 is repor-
ted as a value weighted by the number of buildings at the
reference point and is considered to be the expected seis-
mic loss for the considered (A, A+, B and B+) types of
buildings within the respective district. Thus the expected
seismic loss in this paper refers to the expected number of
buildings that may get damaged within a given reference
period due to an earthquake of any magnitude. It is also
assumed that within the considered reference period, the-
re is no significant variation in the existing building stock.
8. Estimated district wise seismic losses for the reference pe-
riods of 5 years, 10 years and 20 years are presented in the
next section.
RESULTS OF THE EXPECTED SEISMIC LOSS ESTI-
MATION
While in the study all the districts of Uttar Pradesh [name-
ly, Lalitpur, Jhansi, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Banda, Chitrakoot,
Kaushambi, Allahabad, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Chandauli,
Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Kanpur (Nagar),
Kanpur (Dehat), Auraiya, Etawah, Agra, Firozabad, Main-
puri, Hathras, Mathura, Aligarh, Etah, Farrukhabad, Kan-
nauj, Unnao, Rae-Bareli, Sultanpur, Azamgarh, Mau, Bal-
lia, Deoria, Ambedkar Nagar, Faizabad, Basti, Sand Kabir
Nagar, Gorakhpur, Kushinagar, Gonda, Barabanki, Lucknow,
Hardoi, Shahjahanpur, Budaun, Bulandshahar, Ghaziabad,
Baghpat, Meerut, Jyotibhaphule Nagar, Muzaffarnagar, Bi-
jnor, Moradabad, Rampur, Bareilly, Pilibhit, Kheri, Sitapur,
Bahraich, Shrawasti, Balrampur, Siddharthnagar, Maharajga-
nj, Gautam Buddah Nagar, Varanasi, Sant Ravidas Nagar,
Jalaun and Saharanpur], Uttarakhand [namely, Udham Sin-
gh Nagar, Nainital, Campawat, Almora, Garhwal, Haridwar,
Dehradun, Tehri Garhwal, Uttar Kashi, Rudraprayag, Cha-
moli, Bageshwar and Pithoragarh], Punjab [namely, Mansa,
Bathinda, Muktsar, Firozpur, Faridkot, Sangrur, Patiala, Fa-
tehgarh Sahib, Ludhiana, Moga, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Na-
wanshahr, Rupnagar, Amritsar, Hosiarpur and Gurdaspur]
and Tamil Nadu [namely, Kanniyakumari, Tirunelveli, Thoo-
thukudi, Virudhunagar, Theni, Madurai, Ramanathapuram,
Sivagangai, Dindugal, Erode, Karur, Coimbatore, Neelagiri,
Pudukkottai, Thiruvarur, Nagappattinam, Ariyalur, Thiruchi-
rappalli, Namakkal, Salem, Perambalore, Cuddalore, Villu-
puram, Dharmapuri, Tiruvannamalai, Kancheepuram, Vello-
re, Tiruvallur, Chennai, Thanjavur, Krishnagiri, Pudhucher-
ry and Karaikal] are considered, the results presented in this
section contain only those districts with non-zero expected
seismic loss. Detailed hazard estimation for those districts
with non-zero expected seismic losses are presented in
Table1 and the district wise seismic losses (in terms of num-
ber of buildings) are presented in the Figs 2-4.
OBSERVATIONS/DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
Amongst the 133 districts considered in this study, 11
districts are found to have non-zero seismic losses to brick
masonry buildings. In the remaining 122 districts though, al-
most all the districts have non-zero probability of occurrence
no earthquakes have occurred within its circle of influence in
the 100 year period considered in this study) they do not pro-
duce hazard to the level of causing damage to the masonry
buildings considered.
 TABLE 1
DETAILED HAZARD ESTIMATION FOR THE DISTRICTS WITH NON-ZERO EXPECTED
SEISMIC LOSS
District/ Reference point / Magnitude range / No. of Events occurred in the past 100 years
No. of. Buildings: A type and the corresponding PGA max (in g) for each magnitude range
B type
Aligarh <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
27.959 N / 78.114 E 54 # 11 # 2# 0 0
80984 # / 545607# 0.0168 g 0.035 g 0.0858 g 0 0
Bulandshahar <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
28.388 N/ 78 E 102 # 23 # 4# 0 0
54025 # / 596709 # 0.0198 g 0.0418 g 0.1049 g 0 0
Ghaziabad <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
28.694 N / 77.75 E 109 # 23 # 4# 0 0
35873 # / 663712 # 0.0319 g 0.0404 g 0.0777 g 0 0
Gautam Buddah Nagar <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
28.388 N / 77.591 E 79 # 12 # 4# 0 0
15621 # / 257296 # 0.0269 g 0.0722 g 0.1285 g 0 0
Tehri Garhwal <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
30.412 N / 78.575 E 245 # 63 # 8# 1# 0
2759 # / 28651 # 0.0311 g 0.0288 g 0.0939 g 0.0198 g 0
Uttar Kashi <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
30.918 N / 78.54 E 246 # 55 # 7# 1# 0
757 # / 17463 # 0.0284 g 0.0338 g 0.1227 g 0.0169 g 0
Rudraprayag <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
30.474 N / 79.092 E 278 # 71 # 8# 1# 0
868 # / 4048# 0.0356 g 0.0566 g 0.1022 g 0.0296 g 0
Chamoli <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
30.464 N / 79.621 E 290 # 73 # 8# 1# 0
2954 # / 11622 # 0.0365 g 0.0818 g 0.1144 g 0.0468 g 0
Bageshwar <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
29.959 N / 79.897E 277 # 66 # 8# 1# 0
134 # / 3612 # 0.0292 g 0.08 g 0.1088 g 0.0684 g 0
Pithoragarh <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
30.155 N / 80.402E 303 # 67 # 7# 1# 0
778# / 20447# 0.0281 g 0.0736 g 0.0597 g 0.1214 g 0
Coimbatore <5M 5-6M 6-7M 7-8M >8M
10.952 N / 77.023 E 13 # 0 0 0 0
227293 # / 613287 # 0.1006 g 0 0 0 0
Amongst the 11 districts with non-zero seismic loss: (f) In general, the frequency of occurrence of earthquakes
in Uttarakhand is high. In contrast the expected seis-
(a) Four of them are in Uttar Pradesh, 6 are in Uttarakhand mic losses in the districts of Uttarakhand are found to
and 1 is in Tamil Nadu. be lower compared to those of Uttar Pradesh and Ta-
mil Nadu. This is mainly due to relatively low stock of
(b) Pithoragarh district has experienced the highest num- brick masonry buildings in those districts of Uttarak-
ber of 303 earthquakes (within its circle of influ- hand.
ence) with magnitude less than 5, followed by Chamoli
(290 #), Rudraprayag (278 #), Bageshwar (277 #) etc. (g) From the Figs 2 and 3, for the reference period of 5
years, the Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu is found
(c) Chamoli district has experienced the highest number to have high expected seismic loss compared to those
of 73 earthquakes with magnitudes in the range 5-6 districts of Uttar Pradesh and the difference is relative-
followed by Rudraprayag (71 #), Pithoragarh (67 #), ly larger than the same for the reference period of 10
Bageshwar (66 #) etc. years.
(h) From the Fig 4, for the reference period of 20 years the
(d) Teri-Garhwal, Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Bageshwar districts of Uttar Pradesh are found to have higher ex-
districts have experienced 8 earthquakes with magni- pected seismic loss for type B brick masonry buildings
tudes in the range 6-7, followed by Uttar Kashi and Pi- compared to those in Coimbatore district of Tamil Na-
thoragarh (7 #), Bulandshahar, Ghaziabad and Gautam du.
Buddah Nagar (4 #) etc.
From these observations, it is interesting to note that, hig-
(e) One earthquake with magnitudes in the range 7-8 has her frequency of earthquakes need not necessarily imply hig-
been experienced in all the 6 districts of Uttarakhand. her seismic losses. It is also evident that such regional risk

JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING VOL. 36, NO. 6, FEBRUARY - MARCH 2010 431
analyses are essential for financial planning/ prioritising/ mo- for other states, it is possible to produce risk indices of va-
bilizing the resources for risk management. It is worth noting rious states of India with respect to damage to the brick ma-
that the district-wise expected seismic losses reported in this sonry buildings. The main emphasis in developing the metho-
paper are meant only for brick masonry buildings and for dology has been in integrating the useful information availa-
other types of buildings, corresponding vulnerability functi- ble in various sources (viz. Earthquake catalogue, Seismotec-
ons and their building stocks shall be integrated. tonic atlas of India, Vulnerability atlas of India, attenuation
relationship) to quantify the loss. The methodology propo-
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 45000 sed can include any improvements in the knowledge. For in-
Aligarh stance, in this study, a generalized vulnerability function for
A type A+ type B type B+ type
Bulandshahar
brick masonry buildings has been used. Instead, vulnerabi-
lity functions can be developed for specific classification of
Ghaziabad
buildings (say, with different diaphragms, geometric configu-
Gautam Budha Nagar
rations, etc) and for specific level of damage (say, immediate
Tehri Garhwal occupancy, life safety, collapse prevention etc). Similarly, ac-
Uttar Kashi curate information about the focal depth of each earthquake
Rudraprayag shall be obtained in order to carryout more refined hazard
Chamoli estimation. Also, in this study, expected seismic loss estima-
Bageshwar ted at the reference point of a given region is considered to
Pithoragarh be the representative of that region. Attempts shall be made
Coimbatore
to overcome this limitation. Studies towards these are being
continued at CSIR-SERC.
Fig. 2 Expected seismic loss for a reference period of 5 years
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 45000 50000
Aligarh A type A+ type B type B+ type This paper is being published with the kind permission of
Bulandshahar
The Director, CSIR-SERC, Chennai. Authors are grateful
Ghaziabad to Dr. S.T.G. Raghukanth, Assistant Professor, IIT Madras,
Gautam Buddah Nagar Chennai and Dr. P.Kamatchi, Scientist, CSIR-SERC, Chen-
Tehri Garhwal nai for providing the earthquake catalogue. Sincere thanks
Uttar Kashi are to Building Materials Technology Promotion Council
Rudraprayag (BMTPC), New Delhi, Ministry of Housing Urban Pover-
Chamoli ty Alleviation, Government of India for providing necessary
Bageshwar financial support for carrying out research in this area.
Pithoragarh
Coimbatore
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Fig. 3 Expected seismic loss for a reference period of 10 years
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432 JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING VOL. 36, NO. 6, FEBRUARY - MARCH 2010