Seismic Vulnerability Of Kindergarten Buildings In The City Of Osijek

The territory of Croatia is located in a highly prone earthquake area with the threat from earthquakes producing ground accelerations ranging from 0.10g to 0.38g. More than half of the Croatian territory (56.22%) with more than one third (1,633,529) of the total Croatian population is characterized as a zone with a high risk of occurrence of earthquakes. In order to reduce primary catastrophic consequences of earthquakes, certain preparedness and emergency procedures have to be organized in the event of and prior to an earthquake. Earthquake risk refers to the expected losses to a given element at risk, over a specified future time period. Risk may be measured in terms of expected economic loss, or in terms of number of lives lost or the extent of physical damage to property. Kindergartens in Osijek have an important role in the educational process. For each of the 21 kindergarten buildings, the properties related to the year of construction, height, type of structure, total area, etc., are given. Since they mostly have only a base floor and are built as reinforced concrete buildings, they may serve as emergency shelters after earthquake events. Therefore, a complete strategy for evaluating their capability to face probable earthquakes has to be provided. The aim of the article is to determine seismic vulnerability of kindergarten buildings - the degree of loss to a given element at risk resulting from a given level of hazard, defined as a ratio of the expected loss to the maximum possible loss on a scale from 0 to 1, where 0 means without damage and 1 means collapse of building.