In order to quickly assess the safety of the structure after disaster， a rapid damage identification method based on local transmissibility function and pattern matching is proposed. The finite element models of the structure with different damage scenarios are established. The natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained through modal analysis and the damage pattern database is established. For the real structure to be assessed， the local transmissibility function is calculated using the vibration signals measured by limited number of sensors installed on the structure to construct the matching factor matrix. Meanwhile， using the modal parameters stored in the damage pattern database， the damage pattern matrix is also calculated， establishing the mapping relationship between the matching factor matrix and the damage pattern matrix. The similarity index obtained by Euclidean distance is used to measure the level of the pattern matching. The damage pattern with the highest similarity is regarded as the damage scenario of the real structure， so that the damage is identified. In order to verify the feasibility and accuracy of this method， a four-layer interlayer shear model is simulated and tested in the lab. The results of both simulation and experiment show that the proposed method can accurately identify the damage location and severity of the structure. The proposed method has the advantages that it does not involve complex algorithms， only a small amount of sensors are used， and the calculation speed is fast， which meets the requirements of rapid post-earthquake evaluation of the structure. This method is only related to the inherent properties of the structure，but not requires the structural modal parameter identification. Hence， this method has a good prospect of practical application in engineering.