Report on Site Effects in Kushiro-Oki earthquake in Kushiro City

Introduction
Kushiro-Oki earthquake was taken place on 15 January 1993 in Kushiro city, Japan.
Kushiro city is characterized in to two regions that is lowland and terrace region. In terrace
region pumice flow deposits of Pleistocene period predominates at shallow depths and
underlying layer is a sand layer. In the lowland region shallow layers are alluvial deposits of
sand, gravel and soft silt.
The Kushiro-Oki earthquake have surface wave magnitude of 7.8 occurred at a depth
of 103 km with an epicentral distance of 15 km with the Kushiro City.

Damages Occurred and Observed in Kushiro City

Monitoring system in Kushiro City has also got damaged during the earthquake and lot
of data was lost and not transmitted to the meteorological observatory. Communication system
was also got damaged to a maximum extent of 95%. Fortunately, as this earthquake happened
in the greater depth of 103km more casualties were not found. Damages to electric facility,
water supply, gas supply pipelines, roads, railways are found in this earthquake. This
earthquake has seen almost many kinds of damages.

Damages occurred due to Land Slide and Liquefaction

 Landslides in the city are mostly occurred in the area of hydraulic fill used to create
new land. The scale of land slide was 300 m in width 15 m in length, 5 m in high.
 Cracks and sinks of banks were found.
 Huge damage was found to port facility. After the earthquake around 20,000m2 of
asphalt was washed away in port of Kushiro and cracks were found in pier.
 Severe damage of port area in the city of Kushiro was induced by liquefaction that
occurred over large But, it probed no-damage to some points. With the protection
construction such as the Sand Compaction Pile Method and Gravel-Drains Method
which are installed to prevent the liquefaction of ground.
 The damage of sewerage was smaller comparatively than other facilities and most
damage is occurred mainly in area of hydraulic fill used to create new-land.
 Manholes in the district of Kiba and Katsuragi had lifted, most one lifted up was 150cm.
Many tests were carried out by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Central Research Institute
of Electric Power Industry in the ground compacted area as a countermeasure of Soil
Liquefaction. Purpose of this study is to find uplift stability. Shaking table tests for 1/5
scale pipe models in saturated sand were carried out.
Conclusion
This earthquake is a best example for the importance of soil stabilization as a
countermeasure against Liquefaction.
Reference
[1] Yamamura, E., 1996. Land hazards of the Kushiro-Oki earthquake of 15 January 1993.
GeoJournal, 38(3), pp.345-348.
[2] Sasatani, T., 1996. Site effects in Kushiro during the 1993 Kushiro-oki and the 1994
Hokkaido Toho-oki earthquakes. In Proc. 11th WCEE.