**Acknowledgements**

*Natural Hazards - Impacts, Adjustments and Resilience*

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quake damage.

**7. Conclusions**

*story effect. Source: IERD.*

**Figure 28.**

again cause the same level of destruction.

After the occurrence of earthquakes it is necessary to carry out a detailed field report, taking all the detailed photographs possible, to document and analyze the behavior and vulnerability of buildings according to the magnitude, distance and depth of the seismic event, in relation to the construction techniques used in the past and the adequacy of the current construction standards. The reconstruction of a territory severely affected by earthquakes cannot be planned using the same wrong techniques or with the standards in force that have demonstrated its inadequacy. Otherwise, a future earthquake with identical or higher parameters will

*Lorca, X-shaped cracks in infill walls and loss of concrete in the middle body of the RC column suggest a soft* 

For a resilient and sustainable reconstruction of devastated areas, a thorough review of the earthquake-resistant building standards and construction requirements is needed, aiming to ensure the resistance of structures to the higher stresses expected in the macroseismic area. A more precise seismic microzonation for smaller sectors is also required to get accurate structural strength calculations; the case of Lorca studied in this chapter shows that within the same city considered as a whole within the same level of seismic acceleration, specific points can undergo much greater accelerations, probably due to geological anomalies or discontinuities of the ground. Lessons learned like the ones we have discussed in this chapter should help to avoid repeating the same errors in other places. For this reason, it will be necessary to rethink whether the current construction patterns are a good example of good practices, whether they require a modification or reinforcement of the structural design, or whether they should be changed by other patterns more consistent with seismic activity in the area. It is also very important to note that the increase in costs of implementing earthquake-resistant systems in buildings will normally be much less than the volume of economic losses caused by earth-

We want to thank here all those people and institutions that have contributed with photographs to describe the damage of earthquakes on buildings, without which it would be very difficult to see and understand the characteristic effects of these natural phenomena on the different building structures. In the case of the earthquake in San Vicente del Cabo SW, our thanks to the Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera and especially to Antonio Caneira, from the Projects and Contracts Division (DivPC), for his cordiality; with respect to the photographs of the earthquake in Al Hoceima, to the technical architect Patrick Murphy Corella for authorizing their use in this book; and our most sincere gratitude and debt to Antonio Peláez Pérez and Antonio Enrique Peláez Fuertes for the great photographic work they did in the city of Lorca the same afternoon the earthquake occurred and for giving them up for use in this book.
