Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team mission: September 2023 Morocco earthquake

Overview

This lecture will be preceded by the Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) AGM and the Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics (SECED) AGM. The lecture will commence at 6.30pm.

On 08 September 2023, a devastating earthquake with a moment magnitude (MW) of 6.8 struck Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains, causing damage to houses, schools, and hospitals in urban centres like Marrakesh, Taroudant, Asmiz, and Chichaoua. 

This seismic event also triggered numerous landslides, obstructing transportation networks and isolating remote villages in the High Atlas Mountains.

The event resulted in substantial losses, with >3,000 casualties and ~6,600,000 people affected. Although this was an extremely dramatic scenario, it provided a unique scientific opportunity to collect essential data that could help reduce the impact of similar disasters in the future. 

The mission allowed the investigation of the damage scenario and the gathering of extensive field data. The talk will analyse the scenario in Morocco following the earthquake, examine the activation and evolution mechanisms of landslides, evaluate the damage patterns across various construction typologies, and assess remote sensing technologies in reconnaissance missions.

The results from this mission can significantly improve the way we prepare and respond to such extreme and catastrophic events.

The talk is of interest to a wide variety of specialists including earthquake engineers, geotechnical engineers, engineering geologists/geomorphologists, structural engineers, and disaster risk-reduction specialists.

Programme