MONTHLY DINNER MEETING
Date: Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Location: El Adobe Restaurant, 31891 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano;(949) 493-1163
Time: 6:00 p.m.-Social Hour; 7:00 p.m.-Dinner; 7:45
p.m.-Presentation
Cost: $25 per person with reservations, $30 at the door, $12 for students with a valid Student ID
Reservations: Call (949) 253-5924 ex 564, or email Brian Villalobos,
By 5:00 p.m., Monday, April 5, 2004
SPEAKER: Ali Bastani, Ph.D,. GE, Leighton Consulting, Inc.
TITLE: Bam, Iran Earthquake of December 26, 2003
ABSTRACT
As part of Earthquake Engineering Research Institute's (EERI) Learning from Earthquakes (LFE) program
supported by the National Science Foundation, EERI sent a team of engineers and medical specialists to Iran to investigate
and report on the effects of the 6.6 magnitude earthquake that destroyed the city of Bam on December 26, 2003. The
earthquake resulted in the deaths of more than 43,000 people (about half of the city's population), with an additional
20,000 seriously injured, and left another 20,000 to 30,000 people homeless. The devastating quake took more than lives;
it also laid waste to the city's restored old town and massive citadel of Arg-e-Bam (the largest mud-brick complex in the
world).
Iran is located in the middle of Arabian and Eurasia Tectonic Plates. The city of Bam is in a highly seismically active
area southeast of the Lut block at the eastern end of the Zagros Mountain Range. The Arabia-Eurasia convergence is
translated into shear on major north-south striking, right-slip faults on the east and west margins of the rigid Lut Block.
More than ten major earthquakes, with magnitudes ranging from 5.0 to 7.0, were reported within a 100 km distance from the
city of Bam during the past quarter century. However, this historical city was not significantly shaken within recent
history. The epicentral region was located in the city, producing peak horizontal and vertical accelerations of 0.8g and
1g, respectively, with a high directivity pulse. The earthquake caused destruction of most of the adobe and some of the
more recent structures in the city. The other effects of the earthquake included damage to the city's potable water
pipelines and qanat systems, which provided half of the irrigation water required for the agricultural use in the area.
BIO
Ali Bastani is a Senior Project Engineer with Leighton
Consulting, Inc. Dr. Bastani received his B.S. from the Polytechnic of Tehran, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University
of California at Davis. He has been involved in many public work projects during the past ten years, including municipal
solid waste landfills, water reservoirs, transportation, and commercial design projects. He also pursues research in
liquefaction and liquefaction-induced deformation of embankments. Dr. Bastani was also part of the Pacific Earthquake
Engineering Research Center reconnaissance team for the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake in Seattle, and EERI's team for the 2003
Bam Earthquake.
