## 2 Materials and Methods
### Selection and Scaling of Ground Motion Records  
The Kahramanmaras earthquake, with a magnitude of 7.7 and centered in Pazarck, occurred at 04:17 in the morning. Consequently, the majority of the over 50,000 fatalities were among citizens who were sleeping at home. Although the second earthquake also caused significant destruction, the loss of life was considerably lower because people were reluctant to re-enter their homes at that time. Therefore, in this study, the term Kahramanmaras earthquake specifically refers to the first earthquake. For this reason, the spectra of the first earthquake were determined as the target spectra in this study. Almost all major earthquakes in Turkey result in a significant loss of life. This situation either indicates that the regulations are insufficient or shows that the buildings constructed are not built in accordance with the regulations, regardless of whether they are new or old. Two scenarios were considered in this study. Firstly, the impact of the earthquake on buildings in the region very close to the epicenter (Repi = 13.83 km) was investigated, including the validity of the regulations and the extent to which old and new buildings collapsed. Secondly, the study examined how buildings in a settlement relatively far from the epicenter (Repi = 55.32 km) were affected by the earthquake and assessed the earthquake behavior of buildings constructed in compliance with the regulations in this region. The locations of these stations are marked on the map presented in Figure 10. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Model Mean** & \(\Delta_{\text{IO}}\) **(\%)** & \(\Delta_{\text{LS}}\) **(\%)** & \(\Delta_{\text{CP}}\) **(\%)** & \(\Delta_{\text{u}}\) **(\%)** \\ \hline
**3 sO** & 0.3 & 0.7 & 1.5 & 2 \\
**3 sN** & 0.3 & 0.6 & 1.5 & 2 \\
**4 sO** & 0.4 & 0.9 & 1.4 & 1.9 \\
**4 sN** & 0.3 & 0.7 & 1.7 & 2.2 \\
**5 sO** & 0.3 & 0.8 & 1.4 & 1.8 \\
**5 sN** & 0.4 & 0.9 & 1.5 & 2 \\
**6 sO** & 0.3 & 0.7 & 1.2 & 1.6 \\
**6 sN** & 0.4 & 0.8 & 1.6 & 2.1 \\
**7 sO** & 0.3 & 0.6 & 1.1 & 1.4 \\
**7 sN** & 0.4 & 1.0 & 1.9 & 2.5 \\
**8 sO** & 0.2 & 0.6 & 0.8 & 1.1 \\
**8 sN** & 0.3 & 0.7 & 1.2 & 1.6 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 3: Average capacity data for buildings. The purpose of this study was to calculate the extent of destruction in both the near and distant regions, compare the findings with the situation observed in the Kahramanmaras earthquake, and determine whether the loss of life was due to the inadequacy of the regulations or the failure to construct buildings in accordance with the regulations. The properties of the selected accelerations are presented in Table 4 for the 4615 station and Table 5 for the 4611 station. The unscaled spectra and target spectra according to TBEC-2018's selected ground motions are given in Figures 11 and 12. In the study, both a region close to the earthquake and the region far from the earthquake were examined. For this reason, the acceleration records to be used for the near and far regions were selected in accordance with the characteristics of these regions. For station 4615, the selection criteria included earthquakes with a magnitude (Mw) greater than 6.5, an epicentral distance between 0 and 30 km, and shear wave velocities (Vs30s) between 400 and 560 m/s. For station 4611, the criteria included earthquakes with a magnitude (Mw) greater than 6.5, an epicentral distance between 40 and 70 km, and shear wave velocities (Vs30s) between 560 and 760 m/s. The relevant earthquakes were selected based on the PEER [22] strong ground motion database. Simple amplitude scaling was  
Figure 11: Unscaled spectra and target spectrum of 4615 according to TBEC-2018. Figure 10: A map [21] showing the epicenter of the earthquake, the stations, and the province of Kahramanmaras.