The paper presents the application of European Macroseismic Scale - 1998 (EMS-98) in assessing building vulnerability and to construct damage scenarios for the building stock in Padang (Indonesia) and Muzaffarabad (Pakistan). Typical building types in Indonesia and Pakistan are defined and compared to the standard construction types of the EMS-98.
The inventory of 4,000 buildings in Padang was acquired from the 2009 Padang Region Damage Survey undertaken following the 30th September, 2009 West Sumatra Earthquake and supported by the Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction. During the survey, the building stock in Padang was classified into a schema consisting of 54 types and observed damages were categorised into 9 severities. An effort was made to map the building stock and observed damages from the survey outcomes to EMS-98 definitions to perform a scenario.
The inventory of 750 buildings in Muzaffarabad was obtained from a field survey carried out after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake that struck the city and its hinterland, and subsequently updated in 2007 after conducting more surveys. The surveys documented the key building features so that the primary parameters affecting vulnerability and typical failure mechanisms could be identified.
This study highlights the flexibility and robustness that EMS-98 offers for use outside of the European region and describes the limitations and possible improvements in the current version of the scale for global application. These include the addition of new building types (e.g., dhajji, brick veneer and mixed material construction), inclusion of a very high vulnerability class (A-), consideration of building vintage and storey class in vulnerability assignment and damage description for wooden structures. Treatment of subjectivity and uncertainty are the key areas requiring more attention in making improvements in EMS-98 and making it a global scale.
