Abstract: It has been observed during earthquakes that the so called soft-storey failure of an upper floor of a building leads to considerable vertical impact load acting on structural members of the lower storeys. The aim of this study is to investigate numerically the behaviour of horizontally deformed columns (deformation as the result of earthquake loading) that are additionally subjected to vertical impact load. In the first stage of the study, different static pre-deformations of the column as well as various impact load time histories have been considered. Then, the detailed nonlinear analysis has been conducted by exciting dynamically the base of the specimen as well as by applying impact vertical load at different times of the harmonic ground motion excitation. The results of the first stage of the study show that with the increase in the static pre-deformation of the column the peak mean normal stress values induced at the bottom of the specimen as well as the peak horizontal displacement at the middle of the column show a substantial increase trend for all height drop values considered. The results of further study show that vertical impact may substantially influence the response of the column which is dynamically excited in its horizontal direction. Moreover, the time of impact has been found to play a substantial role in the overall behaviour indicating that the response may be increased significantly if impact takes place when the specimen is in the range of its peak horizontal deformation.