SEISMIC RISK REDUCTION AT PORTS - CASE-STUDIES AND ACCEPTABLE RISK-EVALUATION

Japan's Kobe Port was severely damaged during the Hyogoken Nanbu Earth quake of January 17, 1995, suffering a nearly total loss of operations and direct losses estimated to be about $5.5 billion. This paper summ arizes the causes of this damage, and uses this experience as a case s tudy to show that the economic benefits of including seismic risk redu ction methods in the design and construction of ports in areas of mode rate-to-high seismicity can far exceed the increases in initial constr uction costs. The paper also describes and illustrates an ''acceptable seismic risk'' evaluation procedure for assessing the viability of al ternative seismic risk reduction strategies for a given port.