An Innovative Approach to Assess Seismic Safety of Historical Centres

The present paper describes the activities carried out at Chieti-Pescara University after the 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake. The activities are multidisciplinary and have involved both engineers (structural and industrial) and architects (urban planner and specialist in historical buildings). The goal was to obtain a comprehensive approach for the reconstruction of old towns. This activity is particularly important in order to minimize the earthquake consequences on this kind of urban systems. Two peculiar aspects of the work are selected among other ones and presented within this paper. The first one is: how reliable are speedy in-situ surveys, in order to evaluate post-earthquake damages and building occupancy? Considering that both people safety and reconstruction funding depend on this judgment, it is important to check the procedure reliability. The second aspect is the analysis of an old urban center, viewed as a system of fragile components. System components are both material (e.g. a particular building) and immaterial (e.g. availability of the road system), and have been selected to maximize inhabitants safety, above all in terms of first aid to injured people and in terms of efficiency of strategic structures and infrastructures. These considerations are being slowly introduced in the Seismic Italian Code.