Abstract
The 2003 Mw 7.8 Kahramanmaras earthquake produced strong shaking that triggered widespread liquefaction in parts of the port city of Iskenderun, Turkiye. Liquefaction was largely observed near the city’s shoreline, with severe liquefaction and liquefaction-induced building settlement concentrated in the reclaimed land of the Cay District of Iskenderun. This paper presents some of the key observations of liquefaction-induced building and ground settlement documented in the Cay District. Lidar scans and laser-level hand measurements were used to capture building settlements ranging from 0 to 740 mm. The patterns of building and ground settlement indicated they were related. The ground surrounding buildings that settled significantly was deformed downward up to 6 m from the building. The simultaneous warping of the ground from two nearby buildings resulted in a “hogging” or convex ground deformation pattern between the two buildings. In one case, the lidar scans captured hogging ground deformation between a group of four buildings with similar age and construction, and in another case, a lightly-loaded building was damaged by the hogging ground deformation induced by settlement of two adjacent buildings.
