A new approach that can rapidly estimate damage to tall buildings following a large earthquake has been developed by researchers. The approach involves creating a database of building responses to typical earthquake-related ground motions. After an earthquake, an analysis of the ground motions can indicate what type of damage is likely to have occurred to nearby buildings. The results could be useful for emergency response decision making.
Swaminathan Krishnan, Emanuele Casarotti, Jim Goltz, Chen Ji, Dimitri Komatitsch, Ramses Mourhatch, Matthew Muto, John H. Shaw, Carl Tape, and Jeroen Tromp. Rapid Estimation of Damage to Tall Buildings Using Near Real‐Time Earthquake and Archived Structural Simulations. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America. 2012; 102:2646-2666.