Juan-Antonio Balderrama, Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto, Pedro Romero Santiago, Lissette Iturburu, Jesus David caballero calderón, Carlos Arteta, Cesar Pajaro, Selim Günay, Luis D. Aponte-Bermúdez, Xavier Romão, Julian Carrillo, Ivan Gomez, Jorge Archbold, Tali Feinstein, Andreas Giannakogiorgos, Mohamed Elgendy, Aikaterini Kyprioti, Ian Robertson, Rebecca Napolitano, Khalid Alkady, Amirreza Mohammadi, Nurullah Bektaş, Rafael Ruiz, Nancy Ingabire Abayo, Tracy Kijewski-Correa, Khalid Mosalam, David Prevatt, Ariadne Palma Parra
Based on the satisfaction of a majority of its activation criteria, StEER initiated a Level 1 response for the sequence, organizing a Virtual Assessment Structural Team (VAST) to assemble a Media Repository and this Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR) synthesizing source-traceable information on the event and its impacts. The objectives of this PVRR are to: (1) provide an overview of the sequence and associated hazards affecting the built environment; (2) summarize relevant Venezuelan seismic design provisions, code evolution, and construction practices; (3) synthesize preliminary observations of building, infrastructure, geotechnical, coastal, and lifeline performance and identify patterns therein; and (4) identify the following recommendations for continued study by the broader reconnaissance community: 1. Source-traceable, georeferenced documentation of representative building damage, 2. Apparent directionality effects in observed building performance, 3. Implications of the earthquake sequence (doublet) itself, 4. Performance of historical structures through a stock-level survey and corresponding documentation, and 5. Effect of unreinforced masonry infill and potential retrofit strategies