Abstract:
Recent earthquake events, as the ones in Christchurch in 2010 - 2011, led to numerous building damages and changes in the New Zealand insurance sector (ICNZ, 2012). Significant amount of data was gathered but quantitative studies following the earthquakes are sparse (Kim, Elwood, Marquis, & Chang, 2017). Progress has been made in risk estimation and loss assessment related to natural earthquakes. Nevertheless, the experience has highlighted the need for improving tools to better assess and predict the outcomes of buildings subjected to moderate to strong earthquakes as well as induced seismicity (Broccardo, Danciu, Stojadinovic, & Wiemer, 2017). This study leads to a simplified methodology for pre-event data gathering allowing a faster and more accurate loss estimation. Existing pre-event data collection frameworks are reviewed. Data gathered after the Canterbury earthquake sequences are analysed and used to find the different sources driving building damage. Conclusion drawn are used to explore new approaches to conduct the pre-assessment of buildings.