Seismic vulnerability assessment of health facilities in Mexico City, Mexico

Abstract

We developed a model to estimate the seismic vulnerability of health facilities consisting of three phases: 1) Design of a Normative Theoretical Framework (NTF) considering structural, non-structural, functional, and social-administrative elements; 2) Identification of the vulnerability conditions of the analyzed structure by using the NTF; 3) Estimation of the level of vulnerability to seismic hazards of the health facility by comparing the measured vulnerability of the installation with the optimal theoretical indicators. This methodology was applied to three hospitals in Mexico City: Cardiology Hospital of the National Medical Center "Siglo XXI" (CaH), the Children's Hospital "Dr. Federico Gómez" (ChH) and the "Hospital de Jesus" (JeH). Our results indicate that the JeH is the most vulnerable of the three cases of study with very high levels of vulnerability in the non-structural, social-administrative and structural elements. In the ChH, the social-administrative element was classified with moderate levels of vulnerability. In the non-structural as well as in the functional elements, this hospital has high levels of vulnerability. In the structural element only two buildings of its installations have very high levels of vulnerability. The CaH was identified with low and moderate, high, and very high in the structural, functional and socio-administrative, and non-structural elements, respectively. In general, the very high and high levels of vulnerability measured in the three hospitals: 1) In the social-administrative and functional element can be significantly reduced with the establishment of an operational emergency plan; 2) In the non-structural element is mainly due to problems related to roofs' overweight, connecting bridges among the different installations and the lack of regular maintenance; 3) In the structural element is due to the architectural shape of the buildings, type of construction, lack of maintenance and the poor technology to stand seismic shaking.