Venetian churches of Lefkada, Greece Construction documentation and seismic behaviour “Virgin Mary of the Strangers”

Lefkada suffers from frequent and strong earthquakes. On August 14, 2003, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.2 on the Richter scale, one of the strongest ever to occur in the Greek territory, resulted in serious damages of 40 churches. This paper presents certain important morphological features of the Virgin Mary of the Strangers church and the particular structural system of the monument. The peak response of the church during the August 14, 2003 earthquake in Lefkada is studied numerically through the finite elements method using a response spectrum analysis. Moreover, the ground acceleration record of the main earthquake in the centre of the town is considered in the present investigation. The numerical results obtained show very good agreement with the faults exhibited in the structures, and this leads to the determination of the vulnerable areas of the structures affected.