Abstract
At 14:28:04 local time on May 12th, 2008, a great earthquake (M=9) occurred in the mid-west part of China. The earthquake was remarkably large in terms of the length of the activated fault, and therefore affected areas, estimates of rehabilitation costs etc. With the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, the network of Japanese experts in the field of seismology, geology and earthquake engineering planned to organize a team (with the first author as the leader) asking collaboration from Chinese organizations and experts with the China Earthquake Administration as its core. Japanese nominees and experts from CEA have come up to a firm conviction that China-Japan joint investigation would contribute remarkably to learning lessons from the tragic devastations in a scientific manner and therefore to quick and rational rehabilitations. Based on the authors’ first reconnaissance trip, this quick report summarizes some geotechnical aspects of the damage. [This abstract is not included in the PDF]
