A Workshop on Microzonation ©Interline Publishing, Bangalore Methodology for Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Building Stock in Mega Cities

The damage to built environment during recent earthquake in India has demonstrated the need for seismic risk assessment that is capable of predicting the consequences of earthquakes. The collapse of man-made engineered and non-engineered buildings during an earthquake is the chief contributor to the loss of lives and injuries to the people. Vulnerability Atlas of India states that there are about 11 million seismically vulnerable houses in seismic zone V, while the corresponding figure for seismic zone IV is 50 million. In all, there are about 80 million building units in India, which are vulnerable, and pose unprecedented risk, if earthquake strikes. The greatest challenge, therefore, is not only to rehabilitate these vulnerable houses so as to reduce considerable loss to human life and property but also to evolve an accepted methodology in Indian context to estimate/quantify the seismic vulnerability of the existing built environment, which will be provide a useful information for policy making. The paper proposes an approach to estimate seismic vulnerability of existing buildings of a city in Indian context. The scheme estimates seismic vulnerability of existing building stock quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative approach covers demand-capacity computation, while qualitativ