Performance of industrial facilities and lifelines during the October 23rd, 2011 Van, Turkey Earthquake

Damage to essential facilities (e.g. lifelines and industrial facilities) due to extreme loads may cause remarkable indirect impact as well as direct physical loss. Hence understanding seismic performance of essential facilities is very important in high seismic risk regions. On October 23, 2011 an earthquake of magnitude Mw7.2 occurred in Van province in eastern Turkey. Several damages occurred at industrial plants. Damage to equipment and buildings caused work abandon in some industrial plants. In this paper the observed damage to essential facilities such as transportation systems, silos and gas stations are presented.