Local site amplification and damage to wooden houses in Shimoenoki, Tottori, Japan, by the 2000 Western Tottori Earthquake

The degree of damage to wooden houses in the vicinity of the source area of the 2000 Western Tottori Earthquake was very low compared to the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu Earthquake. Shimoenoki in Hino Town, however, suffered remarkable damage compared to other villages, particularly to residential wooden houses. Furthermore, although Shimoenoki is a small area of only 300 × 400 m², the damage varied markedly from the foot of the mountains through central Shimoenoki to the Hino River. From the damage distribution based on a survey of all wooden houses, the local site-amplification characteristics estimated from aftershock records, and the transfer functions of wooden houses evaluated using microtremors, the spatial variation of damage appears to be attributed to the variation in site-amplification factors at frequencies between 2 and 5 Hz, which is close to the first natural frequency of wooden houses.