Abstract
A large number of cracks occured on a revetment of a levee in the Kobe district by the Hyogo -ken Nanbu Earthquake. Among them, low angle cracks will be payed more attention as they might be related to the surrounding ground displacement and deformation. They are classified into 5 types by their form and presence of shear displacement. Four types of them have shear displacement along the cracks in line with the river, but remaining one has not any shear displacement. The origin of low angle cracks is not at all the same and in some cases they are affected by faulting. However, it is estimated that most of the cracks were caused by the larger displacement of subsurface ground under the surface layer, taking into consideration the viewpoint of ground movement, topography and the impact test of a sand layer model.
