An analysis of the different aspects related to the May 11th, 2011 Lorca earthquake is presented, covering recorded ground motions, damage observed in different building typologies, and contrasting these observations with previous results on seismic hazard and seismic risk obtained in the province of Murcia. The essential question addressed in the analysis is whether observed ground motions and physical damage can be considered as expected or as anomalous in the frame of seismic risk in southeastern Spain. In this respect, a number of reflections are carried out and several learned lessons from the earthquake are extracted, which leads to the proposal of different recommendations for the future revision of the Spanish earthquake-resistant provisions, as well as for defining risk reduction measurements in the region.

An analysis of the different aspects related to the May 11th, 2011 Lorca earthquake is presented, covering recorded ground motions, damage observed in different building typologies, and contrasting these observations with previous results on seismic hazard and seismic risk obtained in the province of Murcia. The essential question addressed in the analysis is whether observed ground motions and physical damage can be considered as expected or as anomalous in the frame of seismic risk in southeastern Spain. In this respect, a number of reflections are carried out and several learned lessons from the earthquake are extracted, which leads to the proposal of different recommendations for the future revision of the Spanish earthquake-resistant provisions, as well as for defining risk reduction measurements in the region.

A regional characterization of the seismic vulnerability of the building stock of Navarre (Northern Spain) and the expected damage associated with expected ground shaking for a 475-year return period is presented. Besides the initial planning meetings, the work consists on three phases: The first is the field work conducted along different routes crossing the entire region, including main cities. Two geographical areas with distinctive construction patterns and characteristic typologies were recognised and delimited, together with a transition zone. Several buildings were sampled and documented, and empirical vulnerability distributions were obtained. The second phase relates to cadastral data exploitation and processing, selection of parcels as working units and selection of municipalities and districts as representation units. Based on the age of construction and the associated seismic code requirements; the number of stories; and the empirical distributions derived in the earlier stage, statistical distributions of building vulnerability classes were composed following three vulnerability classifications. These include the vulnerability classification of the European Macroseismic Scale, the vulnerability index approach and the Hazus classification. This phase was as important as time-consuming, and set the basis for the proper development of the subsequent analyses. The third phase consisted on calculating the expected damage with empirical as well as with analytical methods, using as seismic input an updated hazard-consistent seismic intensity map of the region. Vulnerability and damage results derived with the three methods used are compared and analysed, and their suitability discussed. Results of this work will be used in the regional seismic risk plan of Navarre (RISNA Project)

The RISNAV project, financed by the Civil Defence Department of Navarre (Northern Spain), aims at assessing seismic risk of the entire region. The final goal of the project is the definition of emergency plans for future earthquakes. With this purpose, four main topics are covered: seismic hazard characterization, geotechnical classification, vulnerability assessment and damage estimation. In this work, the seismic hazard and vulnerability assessment studies are presented.