ABSTRACT
Geographically, Hong Kong is not located in a region of frequent destructive earthquakes, and historically there is no provision for seismic design of building structures in Hong Kong. Many buildings in the urban areas of Hong Kong are high-rise and close to each other and use transfer plate/beam systems to achieve maximum open space at ground level despite most of these areas are actually on reclaimed land of soil susceptible to site amplification. There is also little concern that Hong Kong is one of the major financial centers and one of the most congested cities in the world. Any interruptions to critical facilities and business operations will cause serious social and economical consequence. Such a situation has been questioned by many researchers in the recent years in consideration of recent destructive seismic events occurring in the areas of low to moderate seismicity, such as the Newcastle event in Australia and the Kobe event in Japan. Accordingly, research on earthquake engineering is gradually taking place in Hong Kong and national and international collaborations in the field are actively sought. This paper thus presents the historical review, current research status, future challenge, and research collaboration of earthquake engineering in Hong Kong.
