Building monitoring after the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake

On the 6th of February 2023, a?magnitude 7.8 earthquake?occurred in southern?Turkey?near the northern border of Syria. This event was followed approximately nine hours later by a?magnitude 7.5 quake?located around 95 kilometers (59 miles) to the southwest.?

The first earthquake was the?most devastating to hit earthquake-prone Turkey in over 20 years?and it was as strong as one in 1939, the most powerful recorded there.?It had its centre?near Gaziantep in south-central Turkey, home to thousands of Syrian refugees and the many humanitarian aid organizations also based there.?

There have been 50,783 deaths, 297 missing and 107,204 injured across 11 of the 17 affected provinces of Turkey. At least 15.73 million people and 4 million buildings have been affected. About 345,000 apartments have been destroyed.

The community has been left in a state of vulnerability, unsure whether or not to return to their homes, schools, hospitals...

To?bring?them?some support?in?this critical situation,?Emmanuel Durand?partnered with?Move Solutions, who donated the necessary sensors for the project?to?monitor?and?analyze?the structural conditions of?two hospitals and a large student residence?after the earthquake. That enabled?the collection of valuable data for post-earthquake analysis and?facilitated?the return of people to these essential facilities.?

MONITORING SYSTEM?

Wireless?tiltmeters?were employed to measure inclination and detect any potential shifts in the buildings’ orientations.?Wireless?accelerometers?were used to capture dynamic responses and vibrations induced by external forces or structural instability. The?gateway?served as the central data hub, collecting,?analyzing, and transmitting data to the?cloud-based software platform...(keep reading)