Assessment of Infrastructure Failures in the 2023 Kahramanmaras Earthquakes

The February 2023 Kahramanmaras earthquakes—among the most destructive seismic events of the last century—caused catastrophic loss of life and widespread damage to critical infrastructure across 11 provinces in southern Turkiye. This study documents and evaluates the performance of lifeline systems, including water, wastewater, pipelines, transportation, electricity, and telecommunications, based on extensive postearthquake field investigations by multidisciplinary teams. The analysis identifies both systemic and structural vulnerabilities that disrupted service continuity and hindered emergency response. Common failure mechanisms included brittle and aging materials, inadequate seismic detailing, liquefaction, slope instability, and fault rupture. Water transmission and distribution networks experienced extensive breaks, wastewater treatment plants without ground improvement measures suffered significant structural damage, and pipelines crossing active faults or unstable slopes sustained deformation and rupture. Transportation networks endured significant outages in roadways, bridges, tunnels, and railways, which delayed rescue and recovery operations, while electricity and communication systems were compromised by structural failures and prolonged power outages. Despite these impacts, many modern bridges, treatment facilities, and pipelines performed robustly, offering valuable lessons for future design. The findings highlight the urgent need for targeted retrofitting, material upgrades, redundancy, and improved preparedness planning to enhance the seismic resilience of lifeline infrastructure in earthquake-prone regions.