Assessing Seismic
Vulnerability and Site Response in Varanasi City, India
Singh Manjari, Duggal Shashi Kant and Singh V.P.
Disaster Advances; Vol. 18(10); 73-83;
doi: https://doi.org/10.25303/1810da073083; (2025)
Abstract
Proximity of the highly stressed Faizabad ridge to Varanasi City and the unavailability
of earthquake ground motion records necessitates a stochastic approach to study
the deterministic seismic scenario of Varanasi city. The current study consists
of 1D site response analysis of Varanasi city along Indus-Ganga plain. Details of
boreholes for 30 sites across the city are used in the analysis. Synthesis of strong
ground motions has been done for Azamgarh fault using stochastic finite fault model.
The site response analysis results have been represented as surface acceleration
time history (TH), response spectra and PGA contour. Estimated average response
spectra at surface level are compared with IS-1893:2016 code which reveal that spectral
acceleration values are presently underestimated at many places in Varanasi which
would be a great risk from potential earthquakes in near future.
