• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.51-117
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• 2019

On 15th November 2017, the coastal city of Pohang, located in the Southeastern part of South Korea was shaken by a magnitude 5.4 earthquake. The earthquake displaced more than 1,700 residents and caused more than $ 300 million dollars of economic loss. It was the second most damaging earthquake in the history of Korea. Soon after the earthquake, a group of scientists raised a possible link between the first Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) project and the earthquake. At the same time, another group of scientists put forward a different hypothesis of the causation of the earthquake claiming that it was caused by the geological movements that were initiated by the Great Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Since then, there were scientific debates between the two different groups of scientists. The scientific debate on the causation of the earthquake has been concluded temporarily by the Research Investigatory Committee on the Pohang Earthquake in 2019. The research committee concluded that the earthquake was caused by the Pohang EGS system: this means that the earthquake can be defined not as a natural earthquake, but as an artificially triggered earthquake. This article is to examine the Pohang earthquake can be defined as an Anthropocenic event. The newly suggested concept, the Anthropocene is a relatively novel term to classify the earthly strata and their relationship to geological time. The current geological period should be defined by human activities and man-made earthly environment. Although the term is basically related to geological classification, the Anthropocene has been widely debated amongst humanist and social science scholars. The current disastrous situation of our planet also implies with the Anthropocene. This paper is to discuss how to understand anthropogenic events. In particular, the paper pays attention to two different scholarly positions on the Anthropocene: Isabelle Stenger's Gaia theory and Barbara Herrnstein Smith's relativist theory. The former focuses on the earthly inevitable catastrophe of Anthropocene while the latter suggests to situate and contextualise anthropogenic events. On the basis of the theoretical positions, the article is to analyse how the Pohang earthquake can be located and situated.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.49-58
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• 2022

The 2017 Pohang earthquake caused severe damage to low-rise piloti buildings. The damage was caused mainly by column shear failure, and some core walls were as well. The damaged piloti buildings in Pohang City could be relieved if they were designed correctly according to the standards at that time. However, the post-earthquake investigation revealed design, construction, and permission problems. To solve the problems, the Piloti Building Structure Design Guidelines that include strict specifications were published in 2018. Separately, KDS 41 17 00, the seismic design standard for buildings, was enacted in 2019 and it included the guideline contents. Therefore, at least after the publication of the guidelines, piloti buildings, designed by the standard and guidelines, can be expected to possess better seismic performance than existing piloti buildings. To confirm this, the probability of exceedance for several damage state thresholds was estimated for existing and designed piloti buildings. As a result, the probability of damage of designed piloti buildings was very low compared to existing ones. Consequently, it was confirmed that the guideline and standard adequately supplement the structural fragility of existing piloti buildings.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.19-31
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• 2024

Ports are vital social infrastructures that significantly influence both people's lives and a country's economy. In South Korea, the aging of port infrastructure combined with the increased frequency of various natural disasters underscores the necessity of displacement monitoring for safety management of the port. In this study, the time-series displacements of Yeongilman Port and surrounding areas in Pohang, South Korea, were measured by applying Permanent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PSInSAR) to Sentinel-1 SAR images collected from the satellite's ascending (February 2017-July 2023) and descending (February 2017-December 2021) nodes, and the displacement associated with the 2017 Pohang earthquake in the port was analyzed. The southern (except the southernmost) and central parts of Yeongilman Port showed large displacements attributed to construction activities for about 10 months at the beginning of the observation period, and the coseismic displacement caused by the Pohang earthquake was up to 1.6 cm of the westward horizontal motion and 0.5 cm of subsidence. However, little coseismic displacement was observed in the southernmost part of the port, where reclamation was completed last, and in the northern part of the oldest port. This represents that the weaker the consolidation of the reclaimed soil in the port, the more vulnerable it is to earthquakes, and that if the soil is very weakly consolidated due to ongoing reclamation, it would not be significantly affected by earthquakes. Summer subsidence and winter uplift of about 1 cm have been repeatedly observed every year in the entire area of Yeongilman Port, which is attributed to volume changes in the reclaimed soil due to temperature changes. The ground of the 1st and 2nd General Industrial Complexes adjacent to Yeongilman Port subsided during the observation period, and the rate of subsidence was faster in the 1st Industrial Complex. The 1st Industrial Complex was observed to have a westward horizontal displacement of 3 mm and a subsidence of 6 mm as the coseismic displacement of the Pohang earthquake, while the 2nd Industrial Complex was analyzed to have been little affected by the earthquake. The results of this study allowed us to identify the time-series displacement characteristics of Yeongilman Port and understand the impact of earthquakes on the stability of a port built by coastal reclamation.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.470-484
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• 2020

An earthquake of magnitude 5.4 occurred on November 15, 2017 in Pohang, which caused the damage to buildings and facilities. The earthquake displaced more than 1,700 people. After the Pohang Earthquake, immediate emergency, such as the damage survey and running of shelters have been executed appropriately. However there have been issues with subsequent restoration measures, such as the provision of temporary housing and delivery of natural disaster allowance. As there was inadequate government advertisement about the natural disaster allowance, victims of the earthquake could not receive tangible help. In Japan on the other hand where earthquakes are frequent, post-earthquake restoration protocols are planned well in advance. For example, Japanese earthquake victims are provided with a guidebook outlining different types of government aids available for them so that they can rapidly access government aid. In this study, we refer to the case of Pohang earthquake to analyse the problems in the national earthquake restoration plans and propose how they can be improved by comparing it to Japanese post-earthquake case and a Korean equivalent should be developed, to aid Korean earthquake victims to return to their every life as soon as possible.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.9
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• pp.5-17
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• 2018

A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck the city of Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea on November 15, 2017. Many sand volcanoes were observed on paddy fields, parks and roads. This phenomenon was the first to be observed as a sign of soil liquefaction in South Korea. In this study, two different kinds of ejected Pohang sands were collected from a liquefied paddy field. Those sands were reconstituted into loose and dense conditions and then a series of cyclic simple shear tests were conducted under confining stresses of 100 and 200 kPa. A real earthquake motion was also repetitively applied to the specimen. As a result of constant shear stress tests, the cyclic resistance ratio (CRR) of loose sand was 0.12-0.14, while the CRR value of dense sand was 0.17-0.21. It was shown that the relative density was more influencing factor on liquefaction resistance than the sand types and initial confining stress. When a real Pohang earthquake motion was repetitively applied to the specimen, a loose sand was liquefied at the second earthquake motion but the dense sand at the third earthquake motion.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.201-211
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• 2021

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety in Korea developed seismic fragility function for various building types in 2009. Damage states for most building types were determined by structural analyses of sample models and foreign references because actual cases damaged by earthquakes rarely exist in Korea. Low-rise, piloti-type buildings showed severe damage by brittle failure in columns due to insufficient stirrup details in the 2017 Pohang earthquake. Therefore, it is necessary to improve damage state criteria for piloti-type buildings by consulting actual outcomes from the earthquake. An analytical approach was conducted by developing analysis models of sample buildings reflecting insufficient stirrup details of columns to accomplish the purpose. The result showed that current spectral displacements of damage states for piloti-type buildings might be too large to estimate actual fragility. When the brittle behavior observed in the earthquake is reflected in the analysis model, one-fourth through one-sixth of current spectral displacements of damage states may be appropriate for existing low-rise, piloti-type buildings.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.5-20
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• 2020

In 2017, after the Pohang earthquake, liquefaction phenomena were firstly observed after the observation of domestic earthquake by epicenter. In this study, various in-situ tests and laboratory tests were performed to determine the dynamic properties in (1) Songlim Park, (2) Heunghae-eup, Mangcheon-ri and (3) Heungan-ri, Pohang. As a site investigation, the standard penetration test (SPT), cone penetration test (CPT), multichannel analysis of surface wave (MASW), density logging, downhole test, and electrical resistivity survey were performed. In addition, cyclic triaxial test against sampled sand from site was also conducted. Based on the result, high ground water level and loose sand layer in shallow depth were observed for all sites. In addition, liquefaction resistance ratio of soil sampled from Songlim park was lower than those of Jumunjin sand, Toyoura sand, and Ottawa sand.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.41-48
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• 2024

In 2017, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety conducted research for the revision of seismic design standards and performed studies on standard design response spectra. As a result, the Common Application Guidelines for Seismic Design Standards were introduced, and these guidelines have been implemented in the national design standards of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport for practical use. However, it should be noted that the research for proposing standard design response spectra during the 2017 revision was conducted before the occurrence of the significant seismic events in South Korea, such as the 2016 Gyeongju Earthquake and the 2017 Pohang Earthquake. To account for these recent major earthquakes, this study adjusted the standard design spectra based on the records of the 2016 Gyeongju Earthquake and the 2017 Pohang Earthquake and conducted ground response analyses accordingly. The results revealed variations in peak ground acceleration (PGA) at the ground surface even within the same ground classification. It was confirmed that this variation can lead to overestimation or underestimation of seismic loads.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.185-191
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• 2018

Post-earthquake risk assessment technique in Korea is developed in 2013 by National Disaster Management Research Institute, at the same time, related manual and standard regulation is distributed to every local government by National Emergency Management Agency. The objectives of this research are to investigate and evaluate the post-earthquake risk assessment of 9.12 Earthquake (M5.8, Gyeongju City, 2016) and 11.15 Earthquake (M5.4, Pohang City, 2017). To suggest and improve the assessment process of post-earthquake risk, first post-earthquake risk assessment method of advanced foreign countries including US, New Zealand and Japan are compared, and post-earthquake evaluation activities in 9.12 Earthquake and 11.15 Earthquake are analyzed. From the results, it is needed to expand the adapted building and structure types and strengthen the earthquake disaster response capacity of local government.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.133-143
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• 2018

Liquefaction is one of secondary damages after earthquake and has been rarely reported until earthquake except Mw = 5.4 15 November 2017 Pohang earthquake in Korea. In recent years, Mw = 5.8 12 September 2016 Gyeongju earthquake and Mw = 5.4 15 November 2017 Pohang earthquake, which induced liquefaction, occurred in fault zone of Yangsan City located at south-eastern part of Korea. This explains that Korea is not safe against liquefaction induced by earthquake. In this study, the distance between the centroid of administrative district and the epicenter located at Yangsan fault, peak ground velocity (PGA) induced by both Mw = 5.0 and 6.5, and liquefaction potential index (LPI), which is calculated by using groundwater level and standard penetration test results of 274 in the area of Gimhae city located in adjacent to Nakdong river and across Yangsan fault, have been estimated and then kriging method using geographical information systems has been used to evaluate liquefaction effects on the damage of facilities. This study presents that Mw = 5.0 earthquake induces a small and low level of liquefaction resulting in slight damage of facilities but Mw = 6.5 earthquake induces a large and high level of liquefaction resulting in severe damage of facilities.