Abstract: On May 12, 2008, an earthquake with the magnitude of Ms=8.0 occurred in Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province.Many Buildings in very severely affected areas suffered serious damage or even collapsed, causing heavy casualties and huge economic loss.This paper introduced the damage phenomena of R.C frame buildings in severe affected areas.The damage states of the buildings are characterized by total collapse, extensive sway of building, locally continuous collapse of building, partial story collapse, Partial collapse of building and extensive lateral displacement in bottom story.The damage phenomena of beams and columns are classified into shear failure, shear-compression failure, flexure-shear failure, compression-buckling failure, plastic hinge failure of columns, shear failure of beams.The main reasons of damage of R.C frame structures were preliminary analyzed on the aspect of structural plan and facade layout, structural system and structural element.