Abstract Database

AN EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE ESTIMATION TOOL FOR HAITI

MEE11614
Fritz AUPLAN
Supervisor: Kenji Okazaki
Country: Haiti
Abstractfulltext

In order to increase the awareness of decision makers and the population in general in Haiti, an earthquake damage estimation tool is needed. Thus, this study focused on developing a practical earthquake damage estimation tool adapted to the conditions of Haiti. RADIUS, the most appropriate to developing countries, will be adjusted.

RADIUS is applied on Port-au-Prince, with the earthquake of January 12th 2010 that destroyed this capital, as a scenario earthquake. There was a significant difference between the actual damage recorded from the last event in Haiti and the results obtained from the RADIUS program. But after some parameters adjustment taking into account the reality of Haiti, in the constant data of the program, such as: inhabitant parameters, vulnerability curve, casualty coefficient, the results become close to the actual data. Therefore, this modified version of RADIUS can be applied in Haiti on other earthquake prone cities such as the second largest city Cap Haitian and Port-de-Paix to promote earthquake risk mitigation.