Program

Learning from Earthquakes – Observations from the Field and the Design Office Following the 2023 Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Sequence

Ayşe Hortaçsu | Director of Projects, Applied Technology Council

With an official death toll of 60,000, an estimated economic loss of over $100 billion, and the immediate loss of housing for 3 million residents, the February 6 earthquakes directly affected the lives of millions of people in Eastern Türkiye and Northern Syria. Following such a major event, while mourning the lives lost and supporting first responders, it is critical for engineers and scientists to conduct focused efforts to learn from the disaster, as no analytical model or test facility can replicate a real earthquake and its effects on built infrastructure. The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) established the Learning From Earthquakes (LFE) program in 1973 with a mission to accelerate and increase learning from earthquake-induced disasters that affect the natural, built, social and political environments worldwide. Ayse Hortacsu was deployed to Türkiye one week following the earthquakes as part of the EERI LFE team, and she will summarize her field observations and findings reported by additional teams reported over the past year. The presentation will also include a summary of rebuilding efforts and ongoing initiatives towards improving the way earthquake science and engineering are taught and implemented in Türkiye, and potential implications for the U.S. practice.