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Taiwan Collection: TAI-281

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Title: Soft story failure Creator(s): Mahin, Stephen A. Date: 1999-10-14 Location: ASIA/Eastern Asia/Taiwan Earthquake: Chi-Chi, Taiwan earthquake, Sept. 21, 1999 Magnitude: 7.6

Description: A pair of modern 12-story buildings were part of the same mixed commercial-residential complex. One building failed at the ground story, and the other, while damaged, did not. The lower 3 levels of the building that did not collapse were occupied by a number of small stores which resulted in numerous masonry and lightly reinforced concrete walls throughout these lower levels. In the failed building, the lower level was kept open: the columns in this level suffered severe damage and the few nonstructural concrete walls failed in a brittle manner. (Tung-Shih (Dungsher), Taiwan)

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