Overview of collapsed buildings in Mexico City after the 19 September 2017 (M_w7.1) earthquake

Abstract

An intraslab normal-faulting earthquake struck the central region of Mexico on 19 September 2017, leading to the collapse of 44 buildings in Mexico City. After the earthquake, the authors collected information in situ and through social media about the collapsed buildings, which was statistically processed to identify the causes of their collapse. This article presents the main collapse statistics, which revealed that 64% of the collapsed buildings had between 1 and 5 stories, 61% had a seismic-force-resisting system based on reinforced concrete columns with flat slabs, 57% experienced a soft-story mechanism, 91% were built before 1985, 43% were located at the corner blocks, and 10% exhibited pounding with neighboring buildings. The spatial distribution of the collapsed buildings and the recorded ground motion features suggest that short- and medium-period buildings having well-known vulnerabilities were particularly prone to collapse under amplified high-frequency seismic waves typical of intraslab normal-faulting earthquakes, such as the 2017 Puebla–Morelos earthquake.

A machine learning damage prediction model for the 2017 Puebla-Morelos, Mexico, earthquake

“…Following the earthquake, local and international teams assessed buildings damage across Mexico City (Colegio de Ingenieros Civiles de México (CICM), 2017; Díaz et al, 2017; Galvis et al, 2017; Roeslin et al, 2018a, 2018b; Weiser et al, 2017).…”

“…The 19 September 2017 Puebla-Morelos earthquake induced significant building damage in Mexico City and led to the collapse of 46 buildings (Galvis et al, 2017). Engineers from the Colegio de Ingenieros Civiles de Mexico (CICM) assessed 1,997 buildings throughout Mexico City.…”

Anchor‐yield exposed column bases for minimizing residual deformations in seismic‐resistant steel moment frames

“…In a recent study, Elkady et al 9 extended the loss estimation methodology proposed by Ramirez and Miranda 10 and found that in seismic regions where ground motions are characterized by long duration, steel column vertical residual deformations may control decisions regarding building demolition instead of residual story drift ratios (SDRs) 11,12 . This is also corroborated by field reconnaissance of first‐story steel moment‐resisting frame (MRF) columns from the 2017 earthquake in Mexico 13,14 . Furthermore, while demolition may not strictly be needed from a safety perspective, refurbishment costs may be significant since axial shortening repairs remain challenging to perform 6 .…”

Damage assessment and seismic behavior of steel buildings during the Mexico earthquake of 19 September 2017

“…At least 42 buildings collapsed in Mexico City due to the earthquake, where 71% corresponds to reinforced concrete systems and 29% corresponds to masonry systems (Galvis et al, 2017). It is worth noting that it is not possible to determine the precise causes or evolution of the damage of the collapsed buildings, as detailed information of the structure is unavailable.…”