Large-Scale World Bank Seismic Risk Reduction Program for Public Buildings in Metro Manila, Philippines

Under the auspices of the World Bank, a multi-step risk assessment project has been recently completed for metropolitan Manila, Philippines, the country’s primary commercial and business center, the 11th most populous metropolis in the world, with 12 million. This area is susceptible to multihazard natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and typhoons. To address this vulnerability, a risk assessment and mitigation program was undertaken. A prioritization and seismic retrofit program was developed and focused on public schools and hospitals that have suffered disproportional damage and casualties in past disasters worldwide. The key steps in the program were to: (1) prioritize vulnerable structures, (2) conduct cost-benefit analysis to assess retrofit options, and (3) prepare a seismic retrofitting guidelines including design examples and details. Approximately, 4,000 structures were evaluated. The probabilistic evaluation platform was utilized and retrofit options were developed based on the state of art but simple seismic retrofit methods and modified for local construction.