engleski

The Croatian Centre for Earthquake Engineering: establishment, activities and future opportunities

Croatia is located in the seismically active part of Europe, but since there have been no strong earthquakes on its territory for decades, the seismic risk awareness was very low until the unfortunate events in 2020. When the earthquake struck the country’s capital Zagreb in March 2020 and caused major building damage, the system was completely unprepared. There were neither official forms nor systematically trained experts to carry out the damage and usability assessments of affected buildings. Therefore, a few researchers and professionals got together and created an online platform called www.hcpi.hr (Croatian abbreviation for the Croatian Centre for Earthquake Engineering). It contained training materials for engineers, guidelines for citizens and many other materials useful for the post- earthquake situation. First steps for formalization of this platform started after the Zagreb earthquake, but the process was accelerated after the strong earthquakes in central Croatia in December 2020, when the relevant institutions finally recognized the need. Firstly, the branch was established at the Faculty of Civil Engineering Zagreb, the institution that took the major part in the organization of the system, followed by the establishment of the Intervention Service on the national level. This paper describes the process of the establishment of this platform which could be of interest for all countries located in areas of high seismic risk, but where the activities aimed at its mitigation do not follow the need.

post-earthquake building inspections, emergency response, intervention service, research centre

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