The Venezuela Earthquakes: An Uncomfortable Reminder for Structural Engineers

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It is tempting to attribute the extent of damage from the 2026 Venezuela earthquakes to the country’s socioeconomic and political circumstances. While these undoubtedly shaped vulnerability and recovery, these issues only explain part of the story.

The earthquake pair imposed severe demands. In the most affected areas of Venezuela, shaking reached Modified Mercalli Intensity IX (violent), with approximately 117,000 people exposed to this level of shaking. Yet many of the vulnerabilities exposed were remarkably familiar to the structural engineering profession.

During our reconnaissance in Venezuela, we found that this was not simply a story of poor construction quality, old buildings or inadequate detailing. Important deficiencies were observed, including insufficient transverse reinforcement at some exterior beam-column joints. But widespread damage was also observed in relatively recently constructed buildings. Modern ductile detailing did not necessarily prevent extensive damage to partitions, façades and other components when lateral deformations became large.

One of the clearest observations in Venezuela was the contrast between buildings that controlled deformation and those that did not. Earthquakes, after all, reveal the real-world consequences of our engineering decisions.

Reinforced concrete frame buildings in areas of intense shaking frequently suffered widespread damage to masonry partitions and facades. In some cases, the structure remained standing while partitions were lost, circulation routes were obstructed, and buildings were left out of service. The structure survived; the building, as a usable asset, did not.

The contrast with more robust buildings was difficult to ignore. Reinforced concrete wall structures generally showed better performance, not only of the structure itself but also of partitions and building services. Buildings strengthened with reinforced concrete walls after the 1967 earthquake provided some encouraging examples. So did simple, economical housing constructed with relatively high wall densities. Robustness was not confined to sophisticated or expensive buildings.

This is not an argument for stiffness at any cost. Stiff and strong structures can still be vulnerable when brittle behaviour governs. The point is not to choose between robustness and ductility, but to recognise the importance of controlling deformation while retaining the ductility and detailing necessary to sustain earthquake demands.

What makes these observations particularly difficult to dismiss is how long we have known this. Japanese researchers were documenting relationships between wall density and earthquake damage more than half a century ago. Sozen later argued for the importance of structural robustness alongside ductility. Decades of subsequent research and reconnaissance have continued to point in the same direction.

The evidence on non-structural damage is equally longstanding. Experimental evidence compiled by Algan from hundreds of partition tests showed substantial damage developing at inter-story drifts well below the levels that structural systems may be capable of sustaining.
The distinction matters. Ductility helps a structure sustain large deformations without collapsing. Preventing collapse is fundamental to life-safety design, but it does not in itself guarantee life safety. Nor does it necessarily protect a home, a workplace or the investment they represent. Once partitions, facades, lifts, services and contents are extensively damaged, a structure standing upright may be only part of what society needs from the building.

Controlling deformation therefore matters not only for the structure, but for everything the structure is intended to protect.

Perhaps the value of earthquake reconnaissance should not be measured by whether it reveals something new or unusual about a particular earthquake or the resulting damage. Sometimes its most important message is precisely the opposite: it shows us, once again, the consequences of problems we already understand but did not mitigate.

That should matter to structural engineers well beyond Venezuela. It is easy to look at the damage and ask what Venezuela should do differently. But large deformations, vulnerable non-structural components, insufficient robustness, and existing vulnerable buildings are not uniquely Venezuelan problems. If we accept design approaches that allow substantial deformation, we should also be prepared to confront what those deformations mean for damage. Should preventing collapse be where our ambition ends?

More than five decades after some of these relationships were first documented, earthquakes continue to expose the same vulnerabilities. The uncomfortable question therefore is not simply what we learned from Venezuela. It is how many of those lessons we have already learned elsewhere, and what we have done with them.

Perhaps the challenge is no longer learning the lessons but acting on what we already know. ■

Dr. Ana Sarkis Fernández, PE, is an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, and a L’Oréal–UNESCO For Women in Science Fellow. With international experience in structural design and earthquake engineering research, she focuses on bringing advanced seismic solutions into engineering practice.