The powerful earthquake that struck the Kutch area in Gujarat at 8:46 am on 26 January 2001 has been the most damaging earthquake in the last five decades in India. The M7.9 quake caused a large loss of life and property. Over 18,600 persons are reported to be dead and over 167,000 injured; the number of deaths is expected to rise with more information coming in. The estimated economic loss due to this quake is placed at around Rs.22,000 Crores (~US$5 billions).

The earthquake was felt in most parts of the country and a large area sustained damages. About 20 districts in the state of Gujarat sustained damage. The entire Kutch region of Gujarat, enclosed on three sides by the Great Runn of Kutch, the Little Runn of Kutch and the Arabian Sea, sustained highest damage with maximum intensity of shaking as high as X on the MSK intensity scale. Several towns and large villages, like Bhuj, Anjaar, Vondh and Bhachau sustained widespread destruction. The other prominent failures in the Kutch region include extensive liquefaction, failure of several earth dams of up to about 20m height, damage to masonry arch and RC bridges, and failure of railroad and highway embankments. Numerous recently-built multistorey RC frame buildings collapsed in Gandhidham and Bhuj in the Kutch region, and in the more distant towns of Morbi ( ~125km east of Bhuj), Rajkot (~150km southeast of Bhuj) and Ahmedabad (~300km east of Bhuj). At least one multistorey building at Surat (~375km southeast of Bhuj) collapsed killing a large number of people. The strong motion records obtained from the region at the Passport Office Building under construction in Ahmedabad city, indicate a peak ground acceleration of about 0.11g
[Source: http://www.rurkiu.ernet.in/acads/depts/earthquake/bhuj/index.html]. A preliminary report prepared by IIT Bombay is available at

www.civil.iitb.ernet.in/BhujEarthquake/Earthquake_Web_Page.htm.
 

The state of Gujarat is the heartland of Indian industries like petroleum, power and steel. Indeed, this M7.9 earthquake is the first to hit metropolitan cities of the country in the recent times and the modern industrial constructions. Therefore, the performance of structures in this area will offer important lessons particularly from the points of view of efficacy of Indian codes and construction practices. While from an international standpoint, most of the damages now seen in the Kutch area may have already been known and documented after the past earthquakes across the world, experiences from here would serve as an excellent evidence for the Indian civil engineering community on the performance of its own traditional and modern constructions.

The following provides a quick rundown of the salient structural and geotechnical damages recorded during a reconnaissance survey to capture important lessons from the aftermath of the quake conducted during 02-14 February 2001 by a EERI team of 16 investigators jointly headed by Professor Sudhir K. Jain of the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, and Dr. William Lettis of William Lettis & Associates, Inc, USA. The investigators included geologists, seismologists, geophysicists, geotechnical engineers, structural engineers, and emergency managers. The investigation was supported by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.