A two-step procedure to detect and quantify damages in structures from changes in curvature mode shapes is presented here. In the first step the maximum difference in curvature mode shapes of the undamaged and damaged structure are used for visual identification of the damaged internal-substructure. In the next step, the identified substructures are searched using unified particle swarm optimization technique for exact identification of damage location and amount. Efficiency of the developed procedure is demonstrated using beam like structures. This methodology may be extended for identifying damages in general frame structures.