StEER - 26 MAY 2019 LAGUNA PERU EARTHQUAKE: PRELIMINARY VIRTUAL ASSESSMENT STRUCTURAL TEAM (P-VAST) REPORT

On Sunday May 26, 2019, a magnitude (Mw) 8.0 earthquake took place in Eastern Perú. The earthquake occurred at 2:41 am local time and was caused by an intermediate-depth normal fault rupture on the Nazca plate at a depth of approximately 110 km. According to official communications, available as of May 30th, the earthquake resulted in 2 fatalities, 17 injuries, one collapsed bridge, 5 affected pedestrian bridges, multiple landslides, affected roads (about 51km of affected roads), and damage to hundreds of structures including: 46 health centers, 296 school buildings, 15 commercial buildings, 15 churches, including 5 collapses, and more than 600 uninhabitable residential units.

The combination of the earthquake happening in a sparsely populated area in the back-arc region (east side of the Andes), which is mainly a tropical forest region in the country, and being a relatively deep event led to relatively small amount of damage considering the large magnitude of the event.

For the community of earthquake engineering researchers and practitioners, the multidisciplinary reconnaissance information available right after the event provides an important opportunity to learn from this earthquake, both technically and also from a policy and decision making perspective. As such, this report gathers some publicly-available information, by (i) providing a summary of the origin of the event and its main seismological features, (ii); presenting a summary of ground motions recorded in two countries; and (iii) summarizing the preliminary reports of damage. This Virtual Assessment Structural Team (VAST) Report is a product of StEER to support those seeking to learn from this seismic event and to inform possible future Field Assessment Structural Teams (FAST).