Reconstruction and Retrofit of the Historical Monument of Arge Bam after Earthquake Damage

This earthquake of magnitude 6.5 Mw on the Richter scale with maximum intensity valuesi of 9 EMS resulted in almost complete destruction of the ancient town of Bam and the surrounding area of Baravat, around 800km south-east of Tehran (Photograph 1 and Photograph 2). The faults causing earthquakes within 250 km of Bam have been active at least the past 25 years and this trend may continue in future. The earthquakes recorded during this period are near Arzuieh, 50 km North-West of Bam on 28 February 2006 of magnitude 5.6 Mw damaging about 1000 houses, 250 km southeast of Bam on 22 February 2005 of magnitude 6.4 Mw with a loss of 600 lives, and 125km southeast on 11 June and 28July, 1981 of magnitudes 6.6 and 7.3 Mw with a loss of 3000 and 1500 lives Out of a population of 180,000, the official government report on 29 December 2004 announced a loss of more than 30,000 lives with 50,000 injuries. Damage beyond repair was caused to about 18,000 homes and hundreds of businesses, estimated to be in the region of $10 billion to repair, reconstruct and compensate for losses of life and income. The historic monument of Arge Bam (Photograph 3), parts of which date back 2000 years, was severely damaged (Photograph 4). With an area of 220,000 m2 , it includes 25 distinct monuments ( Photograph 5 & Photograph 6 ) comprising residential, social, educational and commercial buildings, a military camp, mosques, bazaar , school, prison, sports centre, ice house and the governor section, surrounded by 2,000 m of walls up to 18 m high (Photographs 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 18, 19, 25, 26 and 29). The height of walls and towers in the Citadel varies from 6 to 18 m deep, with base width ranging from 2 to 6 m. Outside and along the walls, there were defensive trenches of 1.4 m (Photograph 13). Arge Bam was inhabited until around 1910 when it was used as a Ghajar military camp and is listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO.