JANUARY 25TH 1999 EARTHQUAKE IN THE COFFE GROWING REGION OF COLOMBIA: DAMAGE DESCRIPTION IN THE AREA AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE

摘要

Despite its moderate magnitude the January 25, 1999, earthquake affected the "coffee growing region" of Colombia, causing heavy damages in the cities of Armenia, Pereira, and in many neighboring towns. The combination of shallow focus, closeness to the city, and amplification as a result of soft soils and topographic forms may explain the damage severity in Armenia. The building damage emphasized the lessons learned in previous earthquakes with reference to the bad behavior of brittle unreinforced masonry buildings and reinforced concrete frames built without appropriate earthquake resistant requirements. The adverse interaction between structural and nonstructural elements and bad influence of stiffness and mass irregularities of buildings was verified; main issues why the Colombian building seismic code was updated recently. In the other hand, although the National System for Risk Mitigation and Disaster Preparedness responded in a satisfied way, on the whole, it was proved that the capability of the National Directorate for Risk Mitigation and Disaster Preparedness to convene and coordinate the national system were weak. Once it was detected that the event over passed the local level capacity response, it shows its political, technical and operational weakness, because the other national agencies responded lonely according to their emergency response plan with out the leadership and support of that important coordination agency.