Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Existing Buildings in Changunarayan Ward-4, Bhaktapur Using Rapid Visual Assessment

A study was conducted in order to know the seismic vulnerability of existing buildings, particularly in Changunarayan Ward-4, Bhaktapur, Nepal. This study's primary objective was to assess and assign a damage grade to the area's existing buildings in accordance with EMS-98 and to plot the spatial distribution of them. In order to achieve this goal, a field survey of 2100 existing buildings in that area was carried out for Rapid Visual Assessment (RVA), including parameters such as building types, purpose, storey, age of construction, construction pattern, modification, configuration, design, and materials used. Then those surveyed buildings were damage graded as per EMS-98, and spatial distribution was mapped of the collected data by using GIS. This study provides a summary of observed results from the survey, damage grade categorization of those surveyed buildings, and their spatial distribution map, which could be highly insightful regarding future efforts to construct earthquake-resistant buildings and strategies for effective risk management associated with seismic vulnerability in other similar regions of Nepal. This study showed that about 95% of the area’s existing RCC and masonry structure fall under DG1, while about 3%,1% and 0.33% fall under DG2, DG3 and DG4 respectively.