Bull Earthquake Eng DOI 10.1007/s10518-014-9660-7 ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER Structural damage in the cities of Reggiolo and Carpi after the earthquake on May 2012 in Emilia Romagna Marco Andreini · Anna De Falco · Linda Giresini · Mauro Sassu Received: 28 June 2013 / Accepted: 1 August 2014 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014 Abstract This paper addresses the structural damage to the main buildings of the cities of Reggiolo and Carpi after the primary earthquake shocks on May 20th and 29th, 2012, in Emilia Romagna. The damage survey, performed via form-based methods, highlights the different seismic behaviour of several types of buildings, especially those having historical features, and the consequences of the damage in terms of costs. Moreover, an analysis of some failure mechanisms activated in Reggiolo enables the evaluation of the local peak ground acceleration, due to the soil amplification. Keywords Emilia earthquake · Collapse mechanism · Damage survey · Masonry construction 1 The earthquakes in Emilia Romagna The series of earthquakes that hit the Emilia Romagna Region of Italy on May 20th (02:03 UTC MI = 5.9–13:18 UTC MI = 5.1) and on May 29th 2012 (07:00 UTC MI = 5.8–10:55 UTC MI = 5.3) involved an area of about 9,000 km 2 , traditionally considered with low seismic hazard (Fig. 1). Overall, the sequence caused 26 victims, and induced significant damage to public and private, historic and industrial constructions, and had a substantial impact on the economy of the region. M. Andreini Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, Departmentt of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 North Mathews Ave., Urbana, IL 61801-2352, USA A. De Falco · M. Sassu (B ) Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Constructions Engineering, University of Pisa, Largo L. Lazzarino, 1, 56126 Pisa, Italy e-mail: m.sassu@unipi.it L. Giresini Lehrstuhl für Baustatik und Baudynamik, RWTH Aachen, Mies-van-der-Rohe-Straße 1, 52074 Aachen, Germany 123