Severity of Damage Due to 2017 Kurdistan Region of Iraq-Iran border Earthquake (Halabja Earthquake)

Abstract On 12th of November 2017, a major earthquake of a magnitude of M 7.3 hit Halabja and caused severe structural damage and collapse in Iran, however, only a few areas of Iraq were mildly affected by it. It was considered the deadliest earthquake of the year as its casualties surpassed 400 people most of which were in Iran. Halabja, was only 32 km away from the epicenter, yet the quake caused no noticeable structural damage to the buildings and no casualties or serious injuries were reported from there. This paper presents the possible engineering reasons behind the gigantic gap of severity of the damage between Kurdistan region of Iraq and Iran. The analysis is done after a series of site visit to Darbandikhan and Halabja and taking more than 300 photographs of the damaged and collapsed buildings. Several crucial factors are discussed in detail, the major of which is directionality effects of the quake as its epicenter was in Iran and the quake caused a meter of slip towards south and half a meter of displacement towards west of the epicenter. Due to the directionality effect, the damage was more in the south and the west of the epicenter knowing that most parts of Kurdistan region of Iraq were located at the north of the epicenter. It is also found that the geological location of the buildings was insignificant in increasing the damage level of the buildings.