CNR-Gruppo Nazionale per la Difesa dai Terremoti

Catania is a medium-size city, presently having some 500.000 inhabitants in an urban area that exceeds the municipal boundaries. We remind that it was catastrophically hit by two M∼7 earthquakes in 1159 and 1693, and damaged by a few other earthquakes. After the 1693 disaster it was entirely rebuilt and its large expansion after 1945 occurred in the absence of earthquake norms for buildings (enforced in the municipality only since 1981). For its high vulnerability and hazard, Catania is representative of he situation of several important cities of Southern Italy and in other Mediterranean countries facing a high seismic risk exposure. A basic aim of this Project is the estimation of direct damage to residential buildings, in the assumption that the impact of such damage in Catania would be dominant in terms of life and economic losses in case of a repetition of the 1693 earthquake. Damage evaluation for other structures, such as bridges and viaducts, churches and ecclesiastic monuments, or induced damage on natural environment (liquefaction) are also of interest in the Project and are described in the other contributions.