Adana Earthquake: Peculiar damage distribution and seismotectonic characteristics

The earthquake of Adana (Southern Turkey) took place on 27 June 1998. Its epicenter lays close to the city and its magnitude was Ms=6.2, sufficient to cause a large number of deaths and extensive damage to human constructions. This motion resulted by a left lateral strike-slip faulting along the NE-trending East Anatolian fault system and other fault zones, parallel to it, in the west. The earthquake focal mechanism solution is in agreement with this tectonic setting. In Adana, mainly older constructions bore the brunt of damage, though newer; multi-story buildings did not escape unharmed. In Ceyhan, extensive damage was spread, even to new constructions, while multi-story buildings were largely destroyed. In Ceyhan, specific types of failure were observed; they were due to construction type, building shape and azimuthal position of building relative to the epicentre. The general image of the area, was comprised by damages due not only to age of constructions, quality of construction and building materials, and insufficient earthquake design, but also to location and type of earthquake faulting, epicentral distance and azimuthal location of buildings with respect to the epicentre