Earthquake risk to industry in Istanbul and its management

Istanbul is home to 40% of the industrial facilities in Turkey. Thirty percent of the population working in industry lives in the city. Past earthquakes have evidenced that the structural reliability of residential and industrial buildings in the country is questionable. In the Marmara region the earthquake hazard is very high with a 2% annual probability of occurrence of a magnitude 7+ earthquake on the main Marmara fault. These facts make the management of industrial risks imperative for the reduction of socioeconomic losses. In this paper we present a first-order assessment of earthquake damage to the industry in Istanbul and raise issues for better characterization and quantification of industrial losses and management of urban industrial risks. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2008