Damage assessment of residential constructions in post-flood scenarios: a case of 2014 Kashmir floods

The 2014 Kashmir floods caused widespread damage in the valley of Kashmir, particularly in the city of Srinagar, and had a significant socioeconomic impact. Around 175,000 residential houses were damaged in the valley. Recent studies focusing on the flood–hazard that the Jhelum river poses have shown that a flood event with a return period of five or more years is likely to cause overflowing in the river. As such, policy decisions regarding flood safety are rather important. This paper seeks to inform such future policy decisions from a structural engineering point of view by presenting results from a survey of damaged houses in an area of Srinagar city. The surveyed houses are classified based on construction type and material, exposure level, and age for an adequate interpretation of results. A rational and easy-to-use method of quantifying damage using a damage index scale is proposed and used in this study. Damage index values evaluated using the proposed method are found to correlate well with actual damage in surveyed structures. 80% of the surveyed houses were submerged to more than half of their heights and nearly 20% were found to be completely collapsed. Houses with mud mortar, and timber as the material for beams, slabs and plinth were the found to be most damaged, while houses with cement mortar having a damp proof course and reinforced cement concrete beams and slabs were found to have performed well. It is emphasized that structural design in Kashmir has to account for seismic forces as well, and that any guideline thereof needs to take into account both hazards–floods as well as earthquakes.