Description

A Stanford University team traveled to Ecuador after the April 16, 2016 Mw 7.8 Earthquake that heavily impacted many cities along the Coast of Ecuador. Luis Ceferino, Andrés Acosta and Prof. Eduardo Miranda joined Prof. Pedro Rojas (from ESPOL) in Ecuador and surveyed the damage of Guayaquil, Manta, Pedernales and Portoviejo. The following infrastructure was visited:

• IESS Hospital and Rodriguez Zambrano Hospital in Manta. The former completely lost its functionality due to heavy damage to the hospital equipment, and the latter significantly reduced its functionality in the upper stories due to damage caused by high floor accelerations.

• Roads along the Coast verifying several landslides that disrupted the Ecuadorian transportation network.

• Eloy Alfaro airport in Manta. The structure and the non-structural components of this airport were heavily damaged. The control tower collapsed, therefore the airport lost most of its functionality.

• Manta seaport, one of the most important ports in Ecuador. The seaport loss some functionality since it was affected by liquefaction and severe damage to some pillars supporting one of main seaport slabs.  

• The seismically isolated Bahia Bridge. The bridge remained completely functional after the earthquake even though it had significant residual displacement in the isolators. 

• Hundreds of residential buildings. Many houses collapsed in Pedernales. Low and medium rise reinforce concrete frames with masonry infill buildings were mostly affected. In Bahía de Caraquez, several new reinforced concrete frame buildings had non-structural damage.

The trip was featured in Stanford news, and the findings were presented at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. At the right, the video of the presentation at UC Berkeley can be seen.

Team:

• Luis Ceferino

• Andrés Acosta

• Eduardo Miranda

• Pedro Rojas

 With the support of:

• John A. Blume Earthquake Center