EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE: INTENSITY & DAMAGE SCALE

A. Borgohain
Assam Engineering Institute,
Guwahati – 3
MSK64 Seismic Intensity Scale

The Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik scale of seismic intensity was widely used in Europe

and India starting in 1964. The MSK64 scale is based on typical masonry structures,
many of which are very old. MSK64 was revised in 1981 (MSK81) and was superseded
by the European Macroseismic Scale in 1998.

During those years it was found that some of the behavioral effects in MSK64, such as
"panic" and "fright," as well as most of the natural geological effects, were not
consistently useful. People's responses to earthquakes depend on many variables
besides the actual shaking, and seismic effects on the landscape are even less
predictable given the differences in soils, bedrock and structural geology from place to
place. Therefore MSK64 ratings of historical earthquakes should be used skeptically; if
reliable details on building damage are known, they should outweigh the behavioral and
geological evidence. Because it doesn't match up well with modern scales, the MSK scale
is not included in the master table of intensity scales.

Behavioral
Degree Force Structural effects Geologic effects
effects
  I Imperceptible Not felt — —
Felt
  II Very light — —
sporadically
Felt only by
  III Light people at — —
rest
Felt indoors,
  IV Moderate many Windows vibrate —
awakened
Widely felt Interior plaster cracks, hanging objects
  V Fairly strong —
outdoors swing, tables shift
Isolated cracks in soft
  VI Strong Fright Damage to chimneys and masonry
ground
Many
people flee Serious damage to buildings in poor Isolated landslides on
  VII Very strong
their condition, chimneys collapse steep slopes
dwellings
General Many old houses undergo partial Changes in wells,
  VIII Damaging
fright collapse, breaks in canals rockfalls onto roads
Large breaks in substandard structures, Cracks in ground, sand
  IX Destructive Panic damage to well-constructed houses, eruptions, widespread
underground pipe breakages landslides
Rails twisted, landslides
General
  X Devastating Brick buildings destroyed on riverbanks,
panic
formation of new lakes
Few buildings remain standing, water Widespread ground
  XI Catastrophic —
thrown from canals disturbances, tsunamis
Very Surface and underground structures Upheaval of the
  XII —
catastrophic completely destroyed landscape, tsunamis

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Richter scale

Rich·ter scale (rĭk'tər) n. [After Charles Francis Richter (1900–1985), American seismologist.]

A logarithmic scale used to express the total amount of energy released by an earthquake. Its values typically
fall between 0 and 9, with each increase of 1 representing a 10-fold increase in energy. A scale of the magnitude
of earthquakes, ranging from 0 to (in theory) 10. On this scale a value of 2 can just be felt as a tremor. Damage
to buildings occurs for values of over 6, and the largest shock ever recorded had a magnitude of 8.9. The scale is
logarithmic and is related to the amplitude of the ground wave and its duration. See also mercalli scale for
measurements of earthquake intensity.

[Etymology: C. F. Richter; USA 1900-85] geophysics A geometric scale for magnitude (total energy) of an
earthquake, ranging from 1 upwards, with each increment of 1 equalling a 60-fold increase in energy; originally
specified in 1935.

[Richter C. F. Bull. Seis. Soc. Amer. Vol. 25, 1-32 (1935)] In contrast to the Mercalli scale, which expresses
received intensity locally with 12 discrete levels, the Richter scale is single-valued for one earthquake and is
open-ended with a nominal continuum of values (though usually expressed to just one decimal place, and with
no earthquake within historic times having reached 9).

Valuations on the Richter scale are derived from standardized seismographs, and relate to the subterranean point
of the initial disturbance - the hypocentre; the epicentre is the surface point immediately above that.

[Richter C. F. Elementary Seismology (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1958)]

Widely used measure of the magnitude of an earthquake, introduced in 1935 by U.S. seismologists Beno
Gutenberg (1889 – 1960) and Charles F. Richter (1900 – 1985). The scale is logarithmic, so that each increase
of one unit represents a 10-fold increase in magnitude (amplitude of seismic waves). The magnitude is then
translated into energy released. Earthquakes that are fainter than the ones originally chosen to
define magnitude zero are accommodated by using negative numbers. Though the scale has
no theoretical upper limit, the most severe earthquakes have not exceeded a scale value of 9.
The moment magnitude scale, in use since 1993, is more accurate for large earthquakes; it
takes into account the amount of fault slippage, the size of the area ruptured, and the nature of
the materials that faulted.

Richter scale (rĭk'tər) , measure of the magnitude of seismic waves from an earthquake, devised in 1935 by the
American seismologist Charles F. Richter (1900–1985). The scale is logarithmic; that is, the amplitude of the
waves increases by powers of 10 in relation to the Richter magnitude numbers. The energy released in an
earthquake can easily be approximated by an equation that includes this magnitude and the distance from the
seismograph to the earthquake's epicenter. Numbers for the Richter scale range from 0 to 9, though no real
upper limit exists. An earthquake whose magnitude is greater than 4.5 on this scale can cause damage to
buildings and other structures; severe earthquakes have magnitudes greater than 7. The famous San Francisco
earthquake of 1906 was 7.8 on the Richter scale; the Alaskan earthquake of 1964 was 8.4; the Kobe, Japan,
quake of 1995 was 6.9; and the Izmit, Turkey, earthquake of 1999 was 7.4. Like ripples formed when a pebble
is dropped into water, earthquake waves travel outward in all directions, gradually losing energy, with the
intensity of earth movement and ground damage generally decreasing at greater distances from the earthquake
focus. In addition, the nature of the underlying rock or soil affects ground movements. In order to give a rating
to the effects of an earthquake in a particular place, the Mercalli scale, developed by the Italian seismologist
Giuseppe Mercalli, is often used. It measures the severity of an earthquake in terms of its effects on the
inhabitants of an area, e.g., how much damage it causes to buildings.

A scale used to rate the intensity of earthquakes. The scale is open-ended, with each succeeding level
representing ten times as much energy as the last. A serious earthquake might rate six to eight, and very
destructive quakes rate higher.

 No quake greater than nine has ever been recorded.

Richter magnitude scale

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The Richter magnitude scale, or more correctly local magnitude ML scale) assigns a single number to
quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. It is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by
calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude of the largest displacement from zero on a
seismometer output. Measurements have no limits and can be either positive or negative.

Development

Developed in 1935 by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, both of the California Institute of
Technology, the scale was originally intended to be used only in a particular study area in California, and on
seismograms recorded on a particular instrument, the Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer. Richter originally
reported values to the nearest quarter of a unit, but decimal numbers were used later. His motivation for creating
the local magnitude scale was to separate the vastly larger number of smaller earthquakes from the few larger
earthquakes observed in California at the time.

His inspiration for the technique was the Apparent magnitude stellar magnitude scale used in astronomy to
describe the brightness of stars and other celestial objects. Richter arbitrarily chose a magnitude 0 event to be an
earthquake that would show a maximum combined horizontal displacement of 1 micrometre on a seismogram
recorded using a Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer 100 km from the earthquake epicenter. This choice was
intended to prevent negative magnitudes from being assigned. However, the Richter scale has no upper or lower
limit, and sensitive modern seismographs now routinely record quakes with negative magnitudes.

Because of the limitations of the Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer used to develop the scale, the original ML
cannot be calculated for events larger than about 6.8. Many investigators have proposed extensions to the local
magnitude scale, the most popular being the surface wave magnitude S and the body wave (seismology)|body
wave magnitude mb. These tradithimomional magnitude scales have largely been superseded by the
implementation of methods for estimating the seismic moment and its associated moment magnitude scale.

Richter magnitudes

The Richter magnitude of an earthquake is determined from the logarithm of the amplitude of waves recorded
by seismographs (adjustments are included to compensate for the variation in the distance between the various
seismographs and the epicenter of the earthquake). Because of the logarithmic basis of the scale, each whole
number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude; in terms of energy, each
whole number increase corresponds to an increase of about 32 times the amount of energy released. Events with
magnitudes of about 4.6 or greater are strong enough to be recorded by any of the seismographs in the world.

The following describes the typical effects of earthquakes of various magnitudes near the
epicenter. This table should be taken with extreme caution, since intensity and thus ground
effects depend not only on the magnitude, but also on the distance to the epicenter, the depth
of the earthquake's focus beneath the epicenter, and geological conditions (certain terrains
can amplify seismic signals).

Richter Frequency of
Description Earthquake Effects
Magnitudes Occurrence
About 8,000 per
Micro Less than 2.0 Microearthquakes, not felt.
day
About 1,000 per
Very minor 2.0-2.9 Generally not felt, but recorded.
day
49,000 per year
Minor 3.0-3.9 Often felt, but rarely causes damage.
(est.)
Noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises. Significant 6,200 per year
Light 4.0-4.9
damage unlikely. (est.)
Can cause major damage to poorly constructed buildings over
Moderate 5.0-5.9 small regions. At most slight damage to well-designed 800 per year
buildings.
Can be destructive in areas up to about 100 miles across in
Strong 6.0-6.9 120 per year
populated areas.
Major 7.0-7.9 Can cause serious damage over larger areas. 18 per year
Can cause serious damage in areas several hundred miles
Great 8.0-8.9 1 per year
across.
Rarely, great 9.0-9.9 Devastating in areas several thousand miles across. 1 per 20 years
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Meteoric 10.0+ Never recorded; see below for equivalent seismic energy yield. Unknown

(Adapted from U.S. Geological Survey documents.)

Great earthquakes occur once a year, on average. The largest recorded earthquake was the Great Chilean
Earthquake of May 22, 1960 which had a magnitude (MW) of 9.5 (Chile 1960).

The following table needs review. It currently lists the approximate energy equivalents in terms of TNT
explosive force [1] - though note that the energy here is that of the underground energy release (ie a small
atomic bomb blast will not simply cause light shaking of indoor items) rather than the
overground energy release; the majority of energy transmission of an earthquake is not
transmitted to and through the surface, but is instead dissipated into the crust and other
subsurface structures.

Richter Approximate TNT for

Example
Approximate Magnitude Seismic Energy Yield
0.5 5.6 kg (12.4 lb) Hand grenade
1.0 32 kg (70 lb) Construction site blast
1.5 178 kg (392 lb) WWII conventional bombs
2.0 1 metric ton late WWII conventional bombs
2.5 5.6 metric tons WWII blockbuster bomb
3.0 32 metric tons Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb
3.5 178 metric tons Chernobyl nuclear disaster, 1986
4.0 1 kiloton Small atomic bomb
5.0 32 kiloton Nagasaki atomic bomb
5.5 178 kilotons Little Skull Mtn., NV Quake, 1992
6.0 1 megaton Double Spring Flat, NV Quake, 1994
6.5 5.6 megatons Northridge quake, 1994
Tsar Bomba, largest thermonuclear weapon ever
7.0 50 megatons tested (magnitude seen on seismographs reduced
because detonated 4 km in the atmosphere.)
7.5 178 megatons Landers, CA Quake, 1992
8.0 1 gigaton San Francisco, CA Quake, 1906
9.0 5.6 gigatons Anchorage, AK Quake, 1964
9.3 32 gigatons 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
estimate for a 20 km rocky meteorite impacting at 25
10.0 1 teraton
km/s