Bulletin of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering

Comparison between the emergency responses to the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquakes and the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake

Ben Exton — 2026-06-01

This technical note presents comparisons between the emergency response and recovery efforts following two significant seismic events: the 2010–11 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence in New Zealand and the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake in Japan. Drawing on the author’s firsthand observations from both events, the paper highlights key differences in infrastructure resilience, emergency coordination, and community recovery. The aim is to inform future disaster response strategies in New Zealand by learning from Japan’s approach, particularly in terms of speed, adaptability, and community integration.

The 2024 Hualien, Taiwan earthquake: NZSEE learning from earthquakes reconnaissance report

Bo-Yao Lee — 2026-06-01

A M_w 7.4 earthquake struck off the east coast of Taiwan on 3 April 2024. Strong ground shaking was felt across Taiwan, with the highest intensities recorded in Hualien County, resulting in 18 fatalities, three people missing, over 1,100 injuries, the collapse of several buildings, and significant disruptions to infrastructure. Compared with other major recent earthquakes in Taiwan, such as 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake (M_w 7.6), and 2016 Meinong Earthquake (M_w 6.4), the overall damage and casualty levels were relatively low, demonstrating the benefits of important advancements in seismic resilience in Taiwan since the Chi-Chi Earthquake. To gain a detailed understanding of the impacts of the earthquake and of Taiwan’s seismic resilience developments over the past two decades, a New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE) Learning from Earthquakes (LFE) team was deployed to Taiwan between May and June 2024. This journal article reports the observations and key insights from field inspections, meetings with government officials, and discussions with researchers and professors at local universities. The lessons learned from Taiwan’s experience provide valuable insights for New Zealand, highlighting the importance of pragmatic, cost-effective retrofit schemes, proactive emergency management, and rapid functional recovery strategies.

Functional recovery of buildings for seismic resilience of communities: Lessons from the 2024 Hualien, Taiwan earthquake

Alice Chang-Richards — 2026-06-01

Functional recovery is a new design strategy in earthquake engineering that prioritises rapid recovery and building re-use after severe natural disasters. It suggests holistic building performance goals focused on structural robustness, enhanced safety, and a rapid return to operations post-event. To paint a realistic picture of post-earthquake building recovery trajectories, there remains a significant gap in knowledge for calibrating existing building seismic performance assessment frameworks using empirical data from earthquakes. The 2024 Hualien Earthquake in Taiwan provides a unique opportunity to calibrate this approach and improve our understanding of building seismic performance and how the functional recovery of buildings affects community resilience. A reconnaissance trip was undertaken in Hualien, and damage data from 16 buildings were collected to generate functional recovery lessons and benchmark the FEMA-P58 framework using SP3 software. The research suggests that the closure or limited use of some residential buildings was largely due to extensive damage to non-structural elements, including egress and elevators, ceilings, partitions, facades, and glazing. Business disruptions were mainly caused by restricted access or cordons put in place for the safe demolition of adjacent buildings. The adaptive resilience and preparedness of building owners, residents, and businesses appeared to play a significant role in the re-use of buildings. The functional recovery data and lessons learned from Hualien, particularly the positive outcomes of its building retrofit programmes, would support the ongoing development of low-damage design guidelines and seismic design practice in New Zealand that can enhance the seismic performance and recovery of buildings.

Integrated geospatial information platforms for emergency management decision-support: Taiwan’s experiences

Bo-Yao Lee — 2026-06-01

Taiwan’s emergency management practices have rapidly evolved over recent decades, driven by frequent large-scale natural disasters, a desire to enhance inter-agency collaboration, and advancements in geospatial technology. This paper introduces Taiwan’s integrated geospatial information systems and initiatives—including the National Geographic Information System (NGIS) initiative, the Civil IoT Taiwan programme, the Platform for Risk Information and Safety Management (PRISM), and the Hualien County Geographic Information Integration Application Platform—and their crucial roles in supporting decision-making at both national and local levels. We present the development history, system architecture, and practical applications of these systems, highlighting their integration of big data, IoT (Internet of Things), 3D spatial modelling, AI analytics, and real-time information exchange capabilities. Case studies such as the 2024 Hualien Earthquake and Hualien County’s comprehensive digital governance initiatives are used to illustrate how these systems facilitate effective disaster preparedness, emergency response, and post-event recovery. The Taiwan experience demonstrates how continuous technological innovation, robust cross-agency collaboration, and standardised spatial data management can significantly enhance national and local resilience and operational efficiency in emergency management and other business-as-usual operations.

Performance evaluation and cost assessment of weak-story retrofits in RC buildings surveyed after the 2024 Hualien Earthquake

Jonathan Monical — 2026-06-01

To provide evidence on the performance of retrofitting systems for informing retrofit practice in New Zealand, 18 buildings with retrofits including reinforced concrete (RC) column jacketing, RC wing walls, RC shear walls, and steel frames with braces were surveyed after the 2024 Hualien Earthquake in Taiwan. The primary goal of this study was to quantity amounts of retrofitting installed in vulnerable existing buildings prior to the earthquake observed to be sufficient to prevent severe structural damage and disruption to building functionality. The idea would be to use these quantified amounts as a rough threshold for comparing between competing retrofitting systems in preliminary design. In general, the retrofits observed in Taiwan were low-cost and designed to target mitigation of soft and weak first stories, a well-known structural vulnerability within the Taiwanese building stock. Nevertheless, the scope of retrofits ranged from being installed in first story only to along the full height of the building.

Simple indices estimated as ratios of cross-sectional areas of columns and walls to total floor area used as a proxy for base shear strength showed that on average, retrofitting nearly doubled the base shear capacity compared with the original state. To observe the effect of retrofitting on observed earthquake damage, case studies consisting of sets of building pairs, one building without retrofitting that experienced severe or moderate damage and one building with low-cost retrofitting that had minor or no damage, were investigated. Building pairs were selected to have similar size, structural layout, and seismic demand. Based on three case studies, if the amount of retrofitting increased column and wall indices to a certain threshold, no severe damage was observed.

A cost assessment of typical retrofitting systems was performed based on estimated cost schedules provided by Taiwanese structural consulting firms. For a 5-story mixed-use building consisting of both commercial and residential units, and assuming the cost to build a new structure is approximately USD $1000 per square meter, the cost of installing a retrofitting system comprising RC column jacketing and additional shear walls to double base shear strength was estimated to be between 15-20% of the rebuilding cost of the original building (USD $165/m²) based on current construction practice in Taiwan. The average cost of retrofitting installed in 23 private residential buildings was less expensive at approximately USD $130/m² indicating that increasing seismic capacity of vulnerable buildings can be achieved at a reasonable cost.