SIMPLIFIED PARAMETERS FOR THE EVALUATION OF SITE EFFECTS IN THE

Abstract

After the 2002 earthquakes, that struck the southern Italy provinces of Campobasso (Molise) and Foggia (Apulia), the safety assessment of buildings has allowed to evaluate, for different building typologies, the damage level caused by the seismic event; in particular, the survey of the damaged cultural heritage was carried out by the Task Cultural Heritage of the Mixed Operating Centre (COM) in Larino (a village in the epicentral area), coordinated by the “Working Group for the Safeguard of the Cultural Heritage from Natural Risks” (Italy’s Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 116, 21 May 2001 - PCM-DPC Decree, 3 May 2001)”. For this survey activity, the churches were investigated with a specific form proposed by the same Working Group (Ministerial Decree n. 133, 23th January 2001), adopting different forms for other kinds of buildings. The surveyors were organized in teams, called NOPSA (Nuclei Operativi Patrimonio Storico Artistico), composed by officials of the Regional board of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Environmental Conservation (architects and art historians), an engineer and a Fire Brigade technician. The first phase of the safety assessment has been developed on the basis of the warnings received by the Larino COM, and most of the surveyed buildings were churches. The damage assessment of public or private buildings began, initially, near the earthquake epicentre (area 1 - IMCS between 6 and 8.5) and subsequently was carried out for all the villages from which inspection requests arrived. At the same time a vulnerability survey was carried out for the churches, using the II level form (Lagomarsino et al., 2004) proposed in the SAVE Project (“Updated Tools for the Seismic Vulnerability Evaluation of the Italian Real Estate and of Urban Systems” – http://gndt.ingv.it). The damage and vulnerability survey has allowed to verify and optimize the procedures for damage assessment immediately after a seismic event (emergency phase) and to obtain useful indications for the reconstruction phase. On the whole 379 monumental buildings in 101 Molise villages and 207 monumental buildings in 44 Apulia villages were investigated. Figure 1 shows the number of monumental buildings surveyed after the earthquakes for each Molise village, subdividing the region according to the seismic classification proposed by the recent Italian Seismic Code (OPCM n. 3274, 2003 – http://zonesismiche.mi.ingv.it).