A Preliminary Reconnaissance Report on August 11 2012 ...

Performance of the Residential BuildingsMost of the collapsed and damaged houses in the effected villages, as shown in Figure 8, were adobe andunreinforced masonry buildings.The main failure modes of these types of building are the failure of heavyroofs, in plane failure of walls and out of plane failure of wallsas shown inFigure 9. In general,performance of the brick masonry buildings was noticeably better than of adobe ones. Both framed (steeland RC) structures and brick masonry buildings exist in urban areas. No observable structural damageoccurred in residential buildings of the Herris city. Few nonstructural damages observed in thesebuildings. As shown in Figure 10 residential buildings of different types damaged in both Ahar andVarzaghan cities and villages of stricken area. Infill walls of some of the buildings cracked in northernparts of Tabriz city. It should be noted that buildings with minimum code requirements have survived theearthquake as indicated in Figure 11.Figure 8.Overall view of the damaged area. It shows that most damages were due the collapse of adobebuildings [Fars News Agencies]