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Engineering and Socioeconomic of Seismically Vulnerable Buildings in Egypt

Conference Paper · January 2005

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 Engineering and Socioeconomic Issues of Seismically Vulnerable Buildings in Egypt
Khalid M. Mosalam1, Osman Ramadan2, Ashraf Osman2, and Sherif Mourad2

Abstract
The paper reviews the seismic hazard and the development of seismic design specifications in
Egypt. An overview of the typical engineered and non-engineered structural systems of
buildings in Egypt is presented and their seismic vulnerability is demonstrated. An example
building designed according to the Egyptian code is analyzed and its seismic vulnerability and
need for seismic retrofit is illustrated. Viable retrofit solutions are discussed and compared
using available experimental data. Although retrofitting solutions are available to solve
seismic deficiency problems, implementation of these solutions is hampered by complicated
socioeconomic issues. These issues are outlined aiming at developing future actions in design
and construction stages to improve the seismic performance of structures and assure life
safety and collapse prevention in future earthquakes.

Introduction
Egypt is a country of moderate seismicity. It has experienced a limited number of damaging
earthquakes throughout the history. However, in the absence of any seismic provisions in
design codes till 1989, a large inventory of buildings is recognized to be seismically
vulnerable. These include gravity-load designed reinforced concrete (RC) skeletal structures
as well as unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings. Besides, there are few densely populated
areas where some non-engineered buildings were constructed.

Dahshour 1992 and Aqaba 1995 earthquakes were of moderate magnitudes, but have resulted
in appreciable damage. Accordingly, it is expected that large loss of lives and property will
take place in the event of a strong or even moderate earthquake affecting the populated areas.

In this paper, the seismic hazard and the development of seismic design specifications in
Egypt are reviewed. An overview of the typical engineered and non-engineered structural
systems of buildings in Egypt is presented showing their seismic vulnerability. The focus is
on regions with potentially risky residential building systems where loss of lives may be
significant in the event of a damaging earthquake. Different retrofit techniques are discussed
with emphasis on low-budget solutions. The paper emphasizes socioeconomic issues that may
hamper the implementation of such solutions. The goal is to eventually develop feasible
retrofit procedures and the necessary precautions and recommendations to secure accurate
implementation. In this way, the seismic risk on existing vulnerable structures can be reduced
to the level that assures life safety and collapse prevention in future earthquakes.

Seismicity and History of Earthquakes

Egypt lies at the north east of the African tectonic plate whose borders are the Red Sea and
the Jordan valley. Another major tectonic feature is the African rift valley that extends from
the Red Sea down through Ethiopia towards south and east Africa. The contemporary
geological setting of the region is largely governed by active extensional tectonics taking
place within the Gulf of Suez rift where geological young faulting has been known to exist
both along the margins and within the Gulf of Suez.

The historical records available for the Nile valley, delta, Mediterranean coast, and Red Sea
coast are relatively complete. However, they often lack details on far-field effects. The rest of
the country is a desert with unknown historical records. Figure 1 shows the pre-instrumental
(prior to 1899) and instrumental (in the period 1899–1992) earthquakes in Egypt.

1
Associate Prof. (Corresponding author), Civil and Env. Engrg., Univ. of Cal., Berkeley, Email: mosalam@ce.berkeley.edu
2
Professor, Structural Engrg. Dept., Faculty of Engrg., Cairo Univ., Cairo, Egypt.
 a) Pre-instrumental prior to 1899 b) Instrumental in the period (1899–1992)
Figure 1: Earthquakes in Egypt [1].

Although seismic hazard in Egypt is considered low to moderate, seismic risk is relatively
high due to the fact that most of the buildings were designed prior to the implementation of
code regulations for seismic design. In addition, many structures suffer from lack of
maintenance, which in turn reduces the strength and mechanical properties of construction
materials. Moreover, there are historical evidences that several earthquakes had occurred in
the past. Information on the history of these earthquakes from the seventh century and up to
the start of instrumental data in the 19th century can be compiled from Arabic documents
(many of which are unpublished manuscripts). After the 19th century, seismographs started to
be stationed at different parts of Egypt. Over 500 earthquakes were recorded within Egypt or
its vicinity. Examining the spatial and temporal distribution of earthquake epicenters indicated
that Egypt can be divided into five seismic active provinces. These provinces are:
1. North part and its vicinity of south eastern Mediterranean basin: It is very active and
is affected by earthquakes occurring south of Cyprus or Crete, or near El-Faiyum.
2. North part of Red Sea including Gulf of Suez: Tectonic setting up of the area is very
complicated as it is located at the junction of Nubia, Arabia and Sinai plates.
3. North part of Gulf of Aqaba: Historically, this area was subjected to many destructive
earthquakes with a relatively large number of instrumentally recorded earthquakes.
4. South part: It is believed that this area is structurally controlled. However, after the
construction of the High Dam, several micro earthquakes were triggered including
seismic activities at Kalabsha fault, 60 km south of Aswan city.
5. Central part of the Red Sea basin: It is very active where tension stresses are
operating. Earthquakes located at this part are expected to affect north of Sudan.
In general, Egypt can be regarded as an area of moderate seismic activity where damaging
earthquakes take place at steady rate but with relatively long return periods. The seismic
hazard map adopted by the current Egyptian code [2] is shown in Figure 2.

Recent Earthquakes and Reported Damage

Four significant earthquakes occurred during the last four decades in Egypt. The first, having
a surface wave magnitude of 6.6, occurred in the north part of the Red Sea on March 31st,
1969. It caused landslides, rock falls and fissures in the island of Shedwan in addition to
damage to a power station and some hotels in the city of Hurgada. The second earthquake
occurred on November 14th, 1981, south of Aswan (about 1,000 km south of Cairo) along the
Nile River. It measured 5.6 on the Richter scale, in an area that was considered aseismic.
Some scientists attributed this seismic activity to the “reservoir induced seismicity” due to the
construction of the High Dam along the River Nile, resulting in the artificial reservoir Nasser
Lake with an approximate maximum capacity of 157 billion cubic meters.

Figure 2: Seismic map of Egypt according to current Egyptian code [2].

The third and most significant recent earthquake in Egypt is the Dahshour Earthquake, which
occurred on October 12th, 1992 south of Cairo. It is the most severe natural hazard that hit this
area in more than ten decades. The earthquake measured 5.3 local magnitude on the Richter
scale. The P-wave magnitude, mb, and the surface-wave magnitude, Ms, determined from
world-wide seismic records were 5.9 and 5.3, respectively. The epicenter was about 18 km
south of the center of Cairo near the village of Dahshour and located at an estimated depth of
25 km. Official reports stated that at least 560 people lost their lives, many thousands were
injured, and more than 300,000 people lost their homes or work places. These numbers are
high considering the magnitude of the earthquake. Damage appeared to be mainly due to poor
construction materials and inadequate structural detailing, aging, inferior workmanship, and
inadequate maintenance. Panic due to lack of earthquake awareness and preparedness,
especially in schools, was a major factor of the high number of victims. The main lesson
learned from the earthquake is the high potential for disaster in metropolitan Cairo, especially
if warning of this moderate-sized earthquake is not heeded in future development, planning,
and earthquake preparedness. Figure 3(a) shows the intensity distribution for this earthquake.

The fourth earthquake occurred on November 22nd, 1995 in the Aqaba region. The local wave
magnitude was 6.2 and the epicenter was close to the city of Dahab near the tip of the Sinai
Peninsula. Official reports indicated that 5 persons were killed and more than 38 were injured.
About 50 dwellings were damaged, 33 schools were affected with 7 experienced considerable
structural damage. Five hotels suffered damage including one completely collapsed. Twelve
monuments belonging to the Coptic and Islamic eras were damaged and the port of Nuweibaa
was severely affected. Figure 3(b) shows the intensity distribution of this earthquake.

Seismic Code Development

The first seismic loading provisions were published by the Egyptian Society of Earthquake
Engineering, 1988. However, due to lack of official backing, it had minimal impact. The first
code to include seismic loading was the Egyptian Code for Reinforced Concrete Construction,
1989 which included an equivalent static method with a minimum lateral load of 1%. A
similar method was defined in the Egyptian Load for Foundations, 1990, but with different
seismic coefficients. In order to avoid the discrepancy between the two codes, reference to
seismic loading in both codes was superseded by the Egyptian Code for Loads and Forces,
1994. This latter Code followed a procedure similar to UBC 85 to calculate the base shear for
the equivalent static method. The Code stated that dynamic analysis is required for special
and irregular buildings. However, it did not provide a response spectrum or criteria for time
history records. The code for loads has recently been updated and the current version follows
a Eurocode format, and minimizes the use of the equivalent static method. The main hurdle
for the new code was the adoption of the seismic zoning map in Figure 2. Seismic loads in the
new code vary substantially from the older version, and are generally higher.

a) Dahshour Earthquake [3] b) Aqaba Earthquake [4]

Figure 3: Maps of the Modified Mercalli Intensity distribution of recent earthquakes in Egypt.

Classification of Building Stock in Egypt

A survey of the building stock in Greater Cairo [5] classified buildings by type, Table 1, and
year of construction, Table 2. To focus the discussion in this section, buildings in Egypt are
grouped into non-engineered and engineered ones.

Table 1: Classification of building stock by building type in Greater Cairo.

Prefabricated Masonry walls
Type RC skeleton Adobe Others
concrete RC slab Other slab
% 25.2 0.3 36.0 22.0 13.1 3.4

Table 2: Classification of building stock by year of construction in Greater Cairo.

Year Before 1940 1940-1959 1960-1979 After 1980
% 14.2 16.2 38.8 30.8

Non-Engineerd Buildings
The majority of non-engineered buildings in Egypt were built in villages and rural areas prior
to the nineties, but similar constructions are also found at extremities of even major cities.
The number of existing such buildings is large (e.g. in Greater Cairo, about 36% of the
number of buildings susceptible to earthquake damage can be classified as non-engineered or
of low engineering [5]). These buildings are mostly residential and school buildings
presenting a very high risk to life safety in case of damaging earthquakes. The construction of
these buildings varies between adobe, URM, cut-stone and lightly reinforced concrete (LRC).

As non-engineered buildings were erected without seeking proper engineering advice and
may have also been subjected to repeated alterations and/or extensions, including heightening,
without any engineering consultation, their structural safety is questionable even under the
effects of gravity loads. Consequently, these buildings are seismically highly vulnerable.
Damage to these buildings during future earthquakes is anticipated as a result of the lack of
any maintenance programs and the many defects that they possess. These defects are:

Poor quality materials, construction and workmanship: The material used can be of low
quality (not satisfying the local specifications) or may have been used after their expiry date.
They may contain high contents of aggressive salts (e.g. Chlorides and Sulphates) or may
have been stored using insufficient procedures. Poor workmanship results in using wrong
material proportions and poor or inadequate material preparation, mixing, casting and curing.
For instance, foundations may be founded at shallow depths or on weak loose soils. Walls
which are founded on weakly-cemented broken rock or LRC strip footings are common.

Improper or inadequate detailing of masonry and RC structures: This includes use of walls
made of uneven bricks or stones bonded by weak mortar and walls that are not adequately tied
at T and L junctions as well as roofs which are not properly fixed to the top of the walls. This
can lead to building separation at corners and T-junctions resulting in wall overturning and
roof collapsing, particularly for buildings with heavy slab roofs. Also, non-engineered
buildings encompass untied parapets and considerably short lintels above door and window
openings. In RC buildings, beam-column connections are inadequate with no or insufficient
stirrups. As these connections are not designed as moment resisting RC frame joints, they fail
to resist the cyclic shear and bending moments resulting from damaging earthquake shaking.
Besides, column ties usually have small sizes (typically 6 mm diameter), large spacing (300
mm or more) and are not adequately bent at their ends. Moreover, the main reinforcement
typically has inadequate development and splice lengths.

Inadequate structural capacity and ductility: As these types of buildings are not designed by
engineers, some of their structural elements are undersized and do not satisfy the minimum
sizes recommended for seismic design. As a result, their capacity is inferior to the seismic
demand and they are unable to withstand the deformation demand due to insufficient ductility.

Absence of lateral load resisting system and presence of significant structural irregularities:
These buildings are usually asymmetrical with considerable concentrated unsymmetrical
masses. They also involve poor configuration of the structural system, e.g. staggered columns,
discontinuous columns, asymmetrical beam arrangement, etc. These structural irregularities
produce torsional vibration during earthquakes which sometimes cause building collapses.

Inappropriate architectural layouts and positioning of utility ducts: This includes use of large
windows relative to wall length in URM buildings, sparsely-spaced cross-walls, high free-
standing parapets and boundary walls, large open spaces in ground floors (for commercial
use), wall openings located close to corner columns, and service pipes placed inside columns.

Non-engineered buildings in Egypt are typically 3 to 6 floors with one to four flats per floor.
Thus, the average number of residents is about 20 to 100 per building. Accordingly, partial or
total collapse of such buildings during earthquakes contributes significantly to the number of
causalities. In addition, these buildings are usually constructed in narrow streets. This
increases the number of victims as falling building parts kill or injure escaping people and
block the streets against various rescuing groups.
Engineerd Buildings
In an interesting study documented in [6], a database containing 2270 of mainly engineered
buildings located in Greater Cairo area were statistically analyzed for damage inflected by the
Dahshour earthquake. Figure 4(a) shows the variation of number of buildings in this database
containing structural damage with the year of construction. From this figure, one observes
that the percentage of structurally damaged buildings decreased as their year of construction
became more recent. Four classes of structures, namely bearing wall systems with RC slabs
(BW) (824 buildings in the database), RC skeleton (RCF) (844 buildings in the database), RC
skeleton in lower stories and bearing wall system in top stories (RCF-BW) (132 buildings in
the database), and bearing wall systems with wood or steel floors (BW-W/S FL) (385
buildings in the database), are identified with their structural damage in Figure 4(b). A general
conclusion was that more recent bearing wall systems behaved better than older ones. On the
contrary, older RC skeletal buildings behaved better than recent ones.

a) Variation b) Distribution between structural systems

Figure 4: Damage from Dahshour earthquake with construction year and building system [6].

From Table 1, one observes that masonry structures represent 58% of the building stock. This
does not include masonry infill walls which are very common as partitions in RC skeleton
construction. There are two basic variations in the construction of masonry buildings. The
first, common for important structures constructed prior to 1950s in Cairo, uses large one-
face-dressed stones on the outer face of load-bearing walls. The wall thickness varies from 0.5
to 1.0 m, depending on the number of stories. Stones 0.2 to 0.3 m wide are used for the outer
and inner edges of the wall, and the space in between is filled with loosely broken stone chips
and clay mud. Refer to Figure 5 for a typical construction of older masonry walls in Egypt.
The floor is either wood joists spanning 2 to 4 m or steel beams for larger spans. The second
type of masonry construction is more common in small houses built in rural areas, where
adobe brick is used with mud or cement mortar for load bearing walls. Adobe is a sun-dried or
oven-dried brick made of clayey soil that shrinks upon drying to form a hard brick. The use of
adobe is extensive in agricultural regions of Egypt because of its low cost, good thermal and
sound insulation, and ease of construction and availability of the necessary raw material. Mud
is typically scooped from the river or streambed and used to make the brick. Straw is
sometimes added to the adobe as tensile reinforcement. In this type of construction, wood
joists, sometimes even unfinished palm trees, are used for the roof and intermediate floors.
Adobe brick walls are also common as interior partitions and/or exterior walls for top stories.

Despite the fact that masonry is inherently brittle and rather heavy, many masonry structures
in Egypt have survived several earthquakes with minor damage. This could be attributed to
the relatively moderate level of seismicity in Egypt, as well as some seismic proof features in
these structures, such as the use of wood joists along the height of masonry walls to divide the
wall into smaller portions, refer to Figure 5, and provide the necessary ductility and energy
dissipation. The fact that corner walls are often built in an interlocking configuration provides
a box-like section to resist the lateral loading. The use of wood joists for floor beams results
in lighter floors and less floor mass. In addition, the low ratio between actual stresses and
ultimate strength provide ample reserve strength.

Internal rubble filling

External stone

Wooden lintels

Figure 5: Typical construction of older masonry walls in Egypt.

Before the introduction of seismic design provisions, low to medium rise RC buildings in
Egypt were typically designed to resist vertical loads without any consideration to lateral
loads such as those due to wind or earthquakes. This category of buildings had common
reinforcement details characterized by:
1. Low reinforcement (using smooth bars) ratio in columns, ρ = As b × d ≈ 0.4 to 0.8% .
2. Discontinuous positive moment beam reinforcement at the columns where the beam
bottom reinforcement extends for only 150 mm beyond the column centerline.
3. No joint confinement where beam stirrups are terminated and column ties, minimum
reinforcement to prevent buckling of the reinforcing bars, are continued.
4. Lap splices located immediately above the floor level with length taken as 25 × db .
Despite these deficiencies, enormous number of these buildings survived the Dahshur
earthquake with minor non-structural damage. This was attributed to some common practice
of construction of engineered buildings used in Egypt. This includes:
1. The existence of masonry infill walls that are typically made of solid bricks with a
reasonable compressive strength.
2. In many cases, the infill walls are used as shuttering for the soffit of the beam, or the
sides of the neighboring columns, resulting in significant structural integrity, which is
reflected positively on the lateral resistance of these buildings.
3. Architectural style of some Egyptian buildings does not include wide-open areas,
high mezzanine floors, large wall openings, etc. This practice generally does not
cause seismic failure mechanisms such as soft-story and short-column mechanisms.
4. Due to the municipality regulations in Egypt, it is rare to find two adjacent buildings
with large difference in height preventing pounding phenomena during earthquakes.
5. Low reinforcement ratio of typical concrete elements results in high ductility and
consequently some sort of energy dissipation during earthquakes.

Seismic Retrofit of Buildings

The focus of this section is on gravity load designed RC buildings in Egypt. Such buildings
are designed mainly for gravity and wind loads with no consideration to seismic forces.
Consequently, they pose a great threat to their occupants during future earthquakes and they
require actions regarding developing viable retrofit techniques. A hypothetical building
designed according to the older version of the Egyptian Code [7] is adopted to demonstrate
need for seismic retrofit to withstand the seismic loads specified in reference [8]. This is
performed using the equivalent elastic static method of analysis.
The considered building is a typical five story residential one. The structural system and
dimensions in elevation and plan are shown in Figure 6. The building is designed for gravity
and wind loads. The dead load consists of self weight, 200 kg/m2 floor finish, and exterior
masonry cladding walls and interior partitions of 1.8 t/m3. On the other hand, the live load is
of uniformly distributed 200 kg/m2. Wind loads are selected to produce a total base shear of
20.7 ton (0.013W) and 27.5 ton (0.018W) in the X and Y directions, respectively, where W is
the total dead load of the building.

Y
X

a) Elevation b) Plan
Figure 6: Typical five story building designed according to the Egyptian code.

For comparison, worst seismic loads are calculated according to the Egyptian code of practice
for loads and forces [8]. They are estimated to be 46.0 ton (0.031W) and 42.8 ton (0.029W) in
both X and Y directions, respectively. Calculated loads and the corresponding load cases are
summarized in Figure 7. It is to be noted that the two moment resisting frames on axes A and
D are considered in X-direction while the five frames on axes 1 to 5 are considered in Y-
direction where all frames are pinned at their foundations. These frames were designed in
accordance with the working stress design method [7], using concrete grade 25 (28-day cube
characteristic strength = 25 MPa) and steel bars 24/36 (characteristic yield stress=240 MPa).
Detailed description of the frame design can be found in [10]. From the results in Figure 7, it
is clear that the seismic loads are excessively larger than the wind loads.

From the seismic forces required by the Egyptian Code [8], the building safety (in terms of
the demand to capacity ratio as defined in Figure 8) is checked against earthquake loading.
Straining actions obtained are shown to be larger than those resulting from the wind loads.
Results from the building safety evaluation of Figure 8 show that this building (designed for
gravity and wind loads) is unsafe when subjected to seismic loading. This is not a surprising
finding as the base shear due to earthquakes exceeds that due to the wind load by 123% in the
X-direction and by 55% in the Y-direction. Accordingly, the selected five story building is
inadequate and seismic retrofit is essential to upgrade its seismic performance. A number of
retrofit techniques can be designed to improve the seismic performance of the original RC
non-ductile moment resisting frames, refer to Figure 9.
 Wind load in X (Case a) and Y (Case b); Seismic load in X (Case c) and Y (Case d)
Figure 7: Accumulated story shear [ton] of the typical five story building.

0.00 0.71 0.52 0.60 0.43 0.70 0.56 0.18 0.13 0.71 0.57 0.54 0.45 0.67 0.60 0.20

0.82

0.76

0.61

0.76

0.82
0.50

0.63

0.55

0.63

0.50
0.33 0.85 0.35 0.70 0.29 0.82 0.40 0.41 0.09 0.54 0.46 0.64 0.38 0.71 0.50 0.41

1.23

1.32

1.20

1.32

1.23
0.66

1.09

1.02

1.09

0.66
0.45 1.04 0.11 0.97 0.10 1.00 0.21 0.66 0.10 0.82 0.41 0.69 0.34 0.74 0.47 0.45

1.04

0.70

0.61

0.70

1.04
0.87

0.83

0.77

0.83

0.87

0.87 1.20 0.28 1.17 0.27 1.16 0.05 0.94 0.17 0.89 0.35 0.72 0.32 0.77 0.19 0.48
1.30

0.92

0.84

0.92

1.30
1.14

1.03

1.00

1.03

1.14

1.66 1.17 2.17 1.23 2.16 1.27 1.39 0.75 0.86 1.08 0.16 0.93 0.10 0.98 0.79 0.74
1.05

0.98

0.93

0.98

1.05
1.22

1.15

1.29

1.15

1.22

Columns: Fcmax/Fcall (working design); Beams: Muinduced/Muall (ultimate design)

a) Exterior frame b) Interior frame
Figure 8: Evaluation of building safety in X-direction.

Two common retrofit methods of RC columns in Egypt are shown for two real examples in
Figure 10. An extensive experimental study was performed and documented in [11] to
evaluate the effectiveness of different jacketing materials (RC, steel, or GFRP wraps) for
retrofitting RC columns designed according to the Egyptian Code [9]. Figure 11 shows the
control specimen (without retrofit) together with the test setup where constant axial load and
cyclic lateral deformation are applied to the test specimen placed in a horizontal position.

The main conclusions of the experimental study conducted in [11] are:

1. The retrofit techniques using jackets of RC, steel and GFRP wraps significantly
increased the lateral strength and ductility compared to the control specimen.
2. All retrofitted specimens experienced ductile flexure failure (with ductility factor of
more than 4.0) rather than the brittle shear failure of the control specimen.
3. The lateral strength of the RC and the steel jacketed specimens is 3.5 to 4.0 times the
strength of the control specimen while that of the specimens with the GFRP wraps is
1.5 to 1.7 times the strength of the control specimen.
4. The stiffness of the concrete and steel jacketed specimens is 2.0 to 2.7 times the
stiffness of the control specimen while that of the specimens with the GFRP wraps is
close to the stiffness of the control specimen.
5. GFRP wraps retrofit technique produces the maximum energy dissipation index.
6. The RC jacket prepared with smooth contact surface produces strength, ductility, and
energy dissipation close to that prepared with rough contact surface and shear studs.
 Total Partial
Steel Jacketing

A A
Total Partial
Concrete Jacketing
Section A-A
a) Column and beam strengthening by jacketing

B B

Steel Collector
Section B-B
b) Adding infill walls c) Steel bracing w/ or w/o steel collectors
Figure 9: Different strengthening techniques.

a) Steel jacketing b) Concrete jacketing

Figure 10: Examples of retrofit of actual columns in Egypt.

Socioeconomic Issues
With regard to the many research projects on seismology and earthquake engineering that
have been already completed in many countries, it is evident that the role of earthquake
engineering in preventing or reducing the losses caused by earthquake disasters, while vital, is
not the critical issue at present. In fact, earthquake experts are currently able to reasonably
predict the intensity and model the temporal and spatial variation of earthquakes ground
motions. They have also developed adequate structural models for the seismic response
analysis of various types of buildings and appropriate guidelines for design and detailing of
different structural elements. The already developed mathematical models and construction
procedures that cover both new structures and already existing vulnerable ones requiring
repair or strengthening. The authors believe that the present situation is more controlled by
socioeconomic issues particularly in developing countries such as Egypt. In other words
technical issues may not be of major concern compared to socioeconomic issues. This is
evident from the fact that during the last decade, 95 (69 in Cairo University) M.Sc. theses and
38 (23 in Cairo University) Ph.D. dissertations addressing seismic-related topics were
completed in the top seven Egyptian universities. On the other hand, socioeconomic issues
and their impact on seismic safety are lacking.

Figure 11: Setup and control specimen for different retrofit jackets of columns [11].

In Egypt, as most of the building owners spent their life-time savings in constructing their
homes, they wish to ensure their homes are safe against possible future earthquakes, but are
unable to pay the consulting fees and/or to finance the seismic upgrading of their homes, if
needed. Most of these owners carry no home insurance. Besides, the vast majority of the low-
income residential buildings in Egypt are rented with unreasonably low rates that are
regulated in-favor of tenants by court. Due to the negligible return on investment, owners are
not willing to spend more in maintaining their property. Owners attempt to increase their
return on investment by converting the use of building from residential to commercial. This
increases the live loads and usually results in altering the building configuration by removing
partitions which magnifies the building seismic vulnerability.

It is necessary, therefore, to seek some sort of national or international grants to fully or

partially cover the expenses of seismic upgrading or replacement of vulnerable residential and
school buildings in developing countries particularly for low-income areas. For moderate- and
high-income areas, governments may encourage building-owners to execute the required
seismic upgrading using any kind of incentive or they may force them by law. After the
required budget becomes available, another hurdle should be faced. This is the social impact
associated with upgrading the buildings when the tenants have no other homes and may resist
some of the suggested repair/strengthening schemes due to social or architectural reasons.

Special attention and prompt response is crucial for school buildings as their safety is
important to protect the students and teachers and for use as public shelters if people are
forced to evacuate their homes. It is unfortunate that school buildings routinely collapse
during earthquake shaking in most countries. In some Egyptian villages, people do not report
noticeable structure defects in school buildings as this may lead to closing the school until the
budget allows its repair, strengthening or replacement. In such cases, the children would have
to walk all the way to schools in a next village. Thus, the risk is high on students and teachers
in schools and prompt response is essential.
 Another problem is created by the lack of knowledge and sensitivity to quality as related to
safety and collapse and damage prevention among construction labors and site supervisors as
many of them do not have any substantial engineering education or training. As a result,
intense supervision of seismic upgrading works must be performed by experienced
professional engineers. Naturally, this adds to the cost of upgrading.

The public is generally not trained on how to behave during and after earthquakes. Necessary
public awareness programs are needed to inform people about what to do in the event of a
damaging earthquake. Emergency social services must be planned to make it possible to
provide disaster victims with lodging, food, clothing, registration and inquiry as well as
personal services. With good preparation and sufficient training, emergency social service
persons can shorten the time survivors might have to wait for assistance and help people cope
with pain and problems caused by earthquake disasters. Socioeconomic efforts must cover all
phases of the disaster cycle, i.e. preparedness, mitigation, relief, and reconstruction.

Closure
Based on the above, the following three questions and there answers can be inferred:
1) Is there a seismic risk problem in Egypt?
Given the moderate seismicity of Egypt and the vulnerable buildings and knowing that the
seismic risk is the product of hazard and vulnerability, there is a seismic risk in Egypt.
2) Can we formulate the technical problem and find solutions?
Yes, we can by using the available codes, research activities, and expertise.
3) Can we implement these solutions?
Yes, if we address the socioeconomic issues including: a) financing the upgrading of
seismically vulnerable buildings, b) improving the knowledge and sensitivity of
construction workers, and c) increasing the public awareness.

References
1. Ambraseys, N.N., Melville, C.P. and Adams, R.D. (1994). “The Seismicity of Egypt,
Arabia and the Red Sea – A Historical Review,” Cambridge University Press.
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Works,” Housing and Building Research Center, Egypt, Version 1.
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