Estimation of strong motion distribution in the 1995 Kobe earthquake basedon building damage data

The 1995 Kobe earthquake caused unprecedented damage to buildings and civil infrastructures in the city of Kobe and its surrounding areas. In order to evaluate the structural damage in this area due to the earthquake, it is i mportant to estimate the distribution of earthquake ground motion. However, since the number of strong ground motion records is not enough in the heav ily damaged areas, it is necessary to estimate the distribution using other data sources. In this paper, the fragility curves for low-rise residential buildings were constructed using the recorded motions and the building dam age data from the intensive field survey by the AIJ and CPIJ group. The fra gility curves obtained were then employed to estimate the strong motion dis tribution in the district level for Kobe and the surrounding areas during t he earthquake. The results may be useful to investigate the various damages caused by the earthquake. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.