Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Medical Facilities: A GIS Based Application for Chittagong, Bangladesh

Medical facilities are one of the most important lifelines that need to remain functionalduring and after an earthquake. Bangladesh is a multi-hazard prone country located in thesouthern part of Asia where a significant number of natural disasters are recorded each year. Thesecond largest city and economic hub, Chittagong, is located in the south-eastern part of thecountry, falls in the seismically moderate zone as per Bangladesh National Building Code(BNBC 2017) with a seismic zoning coefficient of 0.28g based on 2 percent probability ofexceedance in 50 years. Most of the buildings were built before implementation of seismic codepracticed in Bangladesh. Based on growing need for developing disaster risk plan, seismicperformance is evaluated for existing important medical facilities by applying simple visual riskassessment procedure. The structural database is developed through field survey and result ofseismic performance is presented in Geographic Information System (GIS).