Seismic vulnerability and retrofitting strategies for soft storey buildings: A comprehensive review of past earthquake impacts and structural strengthening techniques

of mass, stiffness, and strength along the height of the structure. During earthquakes, buildings with various degrees of irregularity are commonly found to collapse, resulting in property loss and casualties. This paper presents extensive documentation of post-earthquake damage surveys conducted worldwide over the past three decades to understand different types of failure in RC structures. The severe damage resulting from past earthquakes was discussed, and then studies on softstorey buildings using numerical, analytical, and experimental methods were covered. Different codal provisions for soft-storey buildings and their recommendations for reducing earthquake effects are also discussed at a later stage. In summary, this study intends to provide an overview of seismic upgrading methods as well as several retrofitting and strengthening approaches for soft-storey buildings, which can be utilised to examine how these structures behave during a seismic event and improve the seismic performance of the structures to reduce the causalities during earthquakes.