Haiti Earthquake Response

Publication language
English
Pages
240pp
Date published
01 Mar 2010
Publisher
Arup
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Disasters, Earthquakes, Evaluation-related, Urban
Countries
Haiti
Organisations
Arup

This report provides a summary of the 10 day assignment carried out by Kubilay Hicyilmaz
and Kathy Gibbs from Arup on behalf of Oxfam GB between 24 February and 6 March
2010. Both are chartered structural engineers with 10+ years experience including
specialist expertise in damage assessment and seismic design. They were commissioned
through Arup International Development which operates on not-for-profit basis.
The aim of this assignment was to contribute to the emergency response and recovery by providing technical guidance on how to conduct rapid damage assessment of residential buildings that had been damaged by the earthquake. This is important in order to encourage families to return home to houses which are habitable and/or repairable rather than linger incamps. More specifically Arup's objectives were:

  • Review existing residential building typologies and how they responded to the earthquake
  • Develop rapid and detailed evaluation procedures to enable local engineers, builders and architects to identify seismic damages to residential buildings based on ACT-20-1 Field Manual: Post earthquake Safety Evaluation of Buildings: Second Edition.
  • Make recommendations on how to categorize safety risk
  • Provide recommendations for safe construction practice when demolishing unsafe buildings.