In California, higher performance criteria are mandated for certain types of structures_schools, hospitals, police and emergency response buildings, and certain power facilities. An informed building owner can choose to use these higher criteria, and thus avoid having their high-value, heavily occupied commercial building designed, in effect, to the same earthquake performance level as a low-value farm building. .
Transportation .
A number of major expressways, rail lines, and bridges, some of very modern design, were severely damaged. There are no significant new lessons from the collapse and damage of the older unretrofitted bridges and elevated structures. The structural and foundation details that typically caused damage to the expressways and rail lines have been observed in numerous earthquakes, and the damage was predictable. Some of the upgrade details observed in older retrofitted structures, such as steel column jacketing, are now widely used in California for strengthening. The apparent good performance of these details in Kobe is important to ongoing U.S. programs and needs to be studied in detail. .
Many bridges and bridge approaches were severely damaged. The performance of large new bridges, including cable-tied arch, braced arch, and cable-stayed bridges, should be studied extensively because this is the strongest earthquake to affect such bridges. .
The Port of Kobe, much of which was new, was devastated by widespread and severe liquefaction and/or permanent ground deformation, which destroyed more than 90% of the port's 187 berths and damaged or destroyed most large cranes. Shipping will be disrupted for many months, and some shipping business will probably never return to Kobe, resulting in significant losses to the local economy. .
Other Infrastructure .
The electrical and telecommunications systems in Kobe and surrounding areas performed as expected based on experience from previous earthquakes.