Journal of Civil Engineering and Environmental Technology Print ISSN: 2349-8404; Online ISSN: 2349-879X; Volume 2, Number 3; January-March, 2015 pp. 249-253 © Krishi Sanskriti Publications http://www.krishisanskriti.org/jceet.html Comparative Analysis of PGA-MMI Relationships for January 26 th , 2001 M7.6 Bhuj Earthquake Viraj Parekh 1 , Kapil Mohan 2 and Tejas Thaker 3 1 M.Tech (Infrastructure Engineering & Management) Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat - 382007 2 Scientist – C Institute of Seismological Research, Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of Gujarat, Gandhinagar,Gujarat - 382007 3 School of Technology Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat - 382007 E-mail: 1 virajparekh1@gmail.com, 2 kapil_geo@yahoo.co.in, 3 Tejas.Thaker@sot.pdpu.ac.in Abstract—For the developing country like India, infrastructure industry is booming. Many new technologies, construction practices and international standards have been adopted by India within last decade. After investing such big amount for providing better services to the society, it is must for India to protect the infrastructure from the natural disasters. Earthquake is one of the natural disaster and we have witnessed the devastating post-earthquake effects, too. Earthquake hazards must be address properly for the safety of lives, infrastructure and society at large, which is the urgent need of the hour. Generally we come to know about the earthquake hazards, after earthquake has occurred. Therefore, we are lacking for appropriate mitigation. But it would be better if we can predict the hazards from the past data and records. For that, intensity is a great parameter to deal with. MMI is modified mercalli intensity; intensity refers to the effects actually experienced at that place and MMI is one of the intensity scale denoted by roman numbers from I to X. PGA is peak ground acceleration; it is a measure of earthquake acceleration on the ground, how hard the earth shakes in a given geographic area. Many researchers and scientists had tried to develop the relationship between PGA and MMI for the different tectonic regions. We compared available empirical relationships developed between PGA and MMI for the January 26th, 2001 M7.6 Bhuj, India earthquake. Almost about 80 locations of Gujarat region have been selected for the study. An effort is made here to derive PGA values from MMI values using different empirical relationships available, which can be used for Indian continent region. With this, we can nearly predict the hazards and plan accordingly to mitigate. 1. INTRODUCTION The Bhuj earthquake occurred in Gujarat, India on 26 th of January, 2001. The event struck within the Kutch peninsula near India’s western coast and was felt over much of the Indian sub-continent. Some of the parts of Gujarat were severely damaged. Instrumental recordings of the Bhuj 2001 earthquake are insufficient to comment anything about it. In that case, intensity data can be really helpful. Seismic intensity has traditionally been used worldwide for quantifying the shaking pattern and to identify the area under damage of the earthquake. It describes the thing in a more simplified way. Scientists have developed many relationships of intensity with peak ground motion parameters. One of the ground motion parameter is PGA i.e. peak ground acceleration. One of the intensity is MMI i.e. modified mercalli intensity. We have used PGA-MMI relationships over here to estimate the PGA from MMI data for the Bhuj 2001 earthquake. 2. METHODOLOGY A dataset has been prepared for the 80 different locations of Gujarat state, for their latitude, longitude, intensity, epicentral distance and shear velocity, which has been shown in Table 1. Table 1: Collected Data over 80 locations of Gujarat Location Latitude Longitude MMI D Vs Adhoi 23.400 70.513 10.5 28.9 600 Adipur 23.082 70.066 9.5 41.0 600 Ahmedabad1 23.043 72.578 7 243.6 300 Ahmedabad2 23.030 72.577 7 243.6 280 Ahmedabad3 23.009 72.590 7.5 245.5 300 Ahmedabad4 23.009 72.568 7.5 243.3 280 Ahmedabad5 23.050 72.577 6 243.3 300 Ahmedabad6 23.058 72.564 7.5 241.9 280 Ahmedabad7 23.030 72.551 7.5 241.9 300 Amreli District 21.360 71.150 7 247 930 Anand District 22.320 73.000 6.5 309 442 Anjar 23.117 70.019 10 27 600 Bagathala 22.847 70.717 8.5 80.5 500 Bajana 23.118 71.768 8 161 290 Balamba 22.716 70.436 8 - 500 Beraja 22.986 69.600 5.5 80 500 Bhachau 23.287 70.352 10.5 20 600 Bhadreshwar 22.916 69.891 8.5 66 600 Bharuch 21.719 72.971 6 339 300 Bhavnagar District 21.460 72.110 7 290 380 Bhuj 23.245 69.662 10 61 600 Bhujpur 22.867 69.635 7.5 86.5 300 Bidada 22.900 69.463 6.5 97 300 Chasra 22.969 69.816 8.5 66 500 Chitrod 23.40 70.70 8 48 360