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The earthquake that stroke the Bam
Region in the Kerman Province on the 25
of December 2003, left more than 25,000
people dead and ruined the City of barn and its surrounding villages.
What is of importance and noticeable in
this national catastrophe is that not only the traditionally constructed buildings, but also the newly built steel and concrete buildings were seriously damaged in this earthquake.
Undoubtedly, deficiencies in each of the planning, design, engineering calculations, execution and supervision phases of the building construction has significantly contributed to this disaster.
However, the construction and its supervision, as compared to the other phases, is of utmost importance because of the fact that in these phases people with no specialties are involved and therefore inadequacies and shortcomings are covered up.
In this research attention has been given to structural elements and the connections in the joints as per specifications of the Iranian Building Code for designing earthquake resistant structures, and by utilizing the evidences depicted in the pictures taken from the buildings in Barn, the inappropriate construction practices has been elaborated.