A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE SEISMIC HAZARD ZONING OF PESHAWAR AND ADJOINING AREAS

Many of the structural engineers in Pakistan refer to the UBC code for the design of aseismic structures. On the seismic zones of international cities, the UBC code 1997 has placed Peshawar in the most severe earthquake Zone 4 similar to the high earthquake prone cities of California, Alaska, Japan, Chile, Taiwan or Turkey. These places have suffered some of the most destructive earthquakes of the past. The earthquake history of Peshawar, however, does not inform us about moderate devastation. Moreover work done on the seismic zoning of Pakistan by different national and international agencies and independent researchers present widely conflicting pictures of the seismic hazard of Peshawar. This paper critically reviews almost all of the published work done on seismic zoning, in the light of the locally available data, geology, tectonics and earthquake history of Peshawar.