Adjustability of exposed elements by updating their capacity for resistance after a damaging event: application to an earthquake–tsunami cascade scenario

The 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami remind us once again that these types of cascade event can occur and cause considerable damage. The scientific community realizes the need for rapid theoretical and practical progress on cascade events to provide field teams with the necessary tools and information for action during these types of events. The earthquake damage scenario for Martinique and Guadeloupe islands (French West Indies) has already been performed within the framework of French governmental projects, but these areas, in the vicinity of the French West Indies subduction zone, are also subject to tsunami events. In this study, we propose to perform a combined scenario in which an earthquake is followed by a tsunami, as it could arrive one day, considering the seismic characteristics and potential of such a subduction zone. The vulnerability of the buildings is defined considering local specific information based on several years of field inventories and inspections and is later classified into one of the 36 model building types of HAZUS. The calculation of the damages due to tsunamis follows the HAZUS methodologies. The main novelty of our study is the calculation of damage due to the two phenomena occurring one after the other, not in parallel, as is calculated in the existing literature. Therefore, for the calculation of the damages due to the second event (i.e. the tsunami), the vulnerability characteristics of the initial structure are reduced, considering the damage state of the construction after the first event (i.e. the earthquake). Hence, in our case, this calculation approach allows us to update the number of exposed elements and their changed vulnerabilities considering the damages due to the earthquake, since certain structures are already damaged by the earthquake before the arrival of the tsunami wave. The results coming from our study and our manner of treating the cascading hazards are putting into perspective with the Hazus method for combining damages coming from earthquake and the damages coming from consequently tsunami. The results expressed as the sum of the damages in both most damaged states, Extensive and Complete, are more or less in the same range of values for both studies (our study and HAZUS 2017). However, a trend of having more percentage of complete damages (and hence, less the Extensive damages) with our method than the ones obtained with the Hazus combination can be important information for crisis managing. This is a first result for the French West Indies territory, but anyway, more studies should be carried out in order to check this trend and eventually to confirm and validate this issue for others territories with others bathymetries, vulnerabilities and seismological features.

Managing natural disaster risk with earthquake damage scenarios and shakeout exercises: Lessons from Mw = 8 Mandi multi-stakeholders scenario in India

Scientifically simulated Earthquake Damage Scenario (EDS) and Shakeout exercises help the policymakers to set up emergency plans for the immediate consequences and medium-long-term mitigation and prevention for a seismic event. The purpose of this study is to draw important lessons and a deeper understanding of issues and challenges in planning and implementing such exercises in a highly populous developing country like India. The Government of India developed a first-ever multi-state and multi-stakeholders EDS naming Mw = 8 Mandi and conducted a Mega Multicity Shakeout Exercise in the Western Himalayan Region during 2014. A cross-sectional research design consisting of a mainly qualitative research approach using a multi-stakeholders perspective approach was used to factor key lessons. The scenario development and shakeout exercise faced several challenges such as lack of awareness among concerned stakeholders, lack of technical know-how at the grass-root level, lack of poor coordination among various stakeholders, and unavailability of data on important issues. Due to the lack of understanding of the sensitivity of the issue, the success of implementation largely depends on the involvement of the top leadership of state governments. Scientific EDS exercises followed by mega shakeout exercises helped not only the community up to some extent but also mainly helped administration, government agencies in generating awareness of the earthquake and possible risk attached to it.