It is important to consider the planning of a building fundation and the investigation of the dynamic behavior of soils where the ground is apt to be liquefied. The damage to buildings caused by this earthquake gives important lessons for earthquake resistant design of buildings including wooden houses, reinforced concrete structures and others. There were also heavy cracks and traces of the sand emission due to liquefaction on the school ground and the two septic tanks were buoyed up by this phenomenon. Simlar damage also occurred at the connected portion of the passage between the gymnasium and the reinforced concrete building. The connected portion was separated from each other by 9 cm and slid 15 cm apart on the 4th floor. The heaviest damage occurred at the expansion joint portion of the passage between the two reinforced concrete buildings. Two buildings of the school are of 4-story reinforced concrete structure and two gymnasiums are of 1-story steel structure, and the buildings and gymnasiums stand on very soft sand ground, so the two reinforced concrete buildings are supported by piles. The Noshiro Shogyo High School buildings were some of those a most severely damaged by the earthquake. Damage to expansion joints in reinforced concrete buildings was widespread in the affected district. The districts where buildings were heavily damaged by such ground deformation as sliding and subsidence are Arayamoto-machi and Arayamatsumi-cho in Akita city, Wakimoto in Oga city, Wakami-cho, Hachiru-cho, Noshiro city, all of which are in Akita prefecture, and Shariki-mura and Azigasawa-cho in Aomori prefecture. So, even when a house suffered severe damage, it rarely fell down. houses have very light roofs made of galvanized sheet iron. The feature of the damage to buildings is the fact that most of it was caused by ground deformation due to liquefaction. This is a report on a visual survey of damage to buildings in the main part of affected area. This earthquake caused severe damage to many buildings, mostly in Akita and Aomori prefectures. The Nihonkai-Chubu Earthquake (M=7.7) occurred on May 26, 1983.

Shopping complex construction