A first approach to earthquake damage estimation in Haiti: advices to minimize the seismic risk

This study is in the frame of the cooperative line that several Spanish Universities and other foreign partners started with the Haitian government in 2010. According to our studies (Benito et al. in An evaluation of seismic hazard in La Hispaniola, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 33rd General Assembly of the European Seismological Commission, Moscow, Russia, 2012) and recent scientific literature, the earthquake hazard in Haiti remains high (Calais et al. in Nat Geosci 3:794–799, 2010). In view of this, we wonder whether the country is currently ready to face another earthquake. In this sense, we estimated several damage scenarios in Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haitien associated to realistic possible major earthquakes. Our findings show that almost 50 % of the building stock of both cities would result uninhabitable due to structural damage. Around 80 % of the buildings in both cities have reinforced concrete structure with concrete block infill; however, the presence of masonry buildings becomes significant (between 25 and 45 % of the reinforced concrete buildings) in rural areas and informal settlements on the outskirts, where the estimated damage is higher. The influence of the soil effect on the damage spatial distribution is evident in both cities. We have found that the percentage of uninhabitable buildings in soft soil areas may be double the percentage obtained in nearby districts located in hard soil. These results reveal that a new seismic catastrophe of similar or even greater consequences than the 2010 Haiti earthquake might happen if the earthquake resilience is not improved in the country. Nowadays, the design of prevention actions and mitigation policies is the best instrument the society has to face seismic risk. In this sense, the results of this research might contribute to define measures oriented to earthquake risk reduction in Haiti, which should be a real priority for national and international institutions.

Using the damage from 2010 Haiti earthquake for calibrating vulnerability models of typical structures in Port-au-Prince (Haiti)

After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, that hits the city of Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, a multidisciplinary working group of specialists (seismologist, geologists, engineers and architects) from different Spanish Universities and also from Haiti, joined effort under the SISMO-HAITI project (financed by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid), with an objective: Evaluation of seismic hazard and risk in Haiti and its application to the seismic design, urban planning, emergency and resource management. In this paper, as a first step for a structural damage estimation of future earthquakes in the country, a calibration of damage functions has been carried out by means of a two-stage procedure. After compiling a database with observed damage in the city after the earthquake, the exposure model (building stock) has been classified and through an iteratively two-step calibration process, a specific set of damage functions for the country has been proposed. Additionally, Next Generation Attenuation Models (NGA) and Vs30 models have been analysed to choose the most appropriate for the seismic risk estimation in the city. Finally in a next paper, these functions will be used to estimate a seismic risk scenario for a future earthquake.

La incuestionabilidad del riesgo: vulnerabilidad social y riesgo sísmico en municipios turísticos

Los estudios sobre la vulnerabilidad social han ampliado la gestión de los riesgos naturales tradicionalmente direccionada a la amenaza natural y soluciones tecnológicas. Sin embargo la visión dominante se mantiene hegemónica sin un análisis adecuado de las causas que originan vulnerabilidad social. Este artículo propone un nuevo argumento, organizado en torno al concepto de la incuestionabilidad del riesgo, entendido como la incapacidad cultural y política de objetar el modelo socioeconómico imperante en donde residen las causas de fondo productoras de riesgo. Para concretar el concepto, a modo de ejemplo, se analizan el Plan de Actuación Municipal frente al Riesgo Sísmico de la ciudad de Torrevieja.

Las viviendas subterráneas y el riesgo sísmico

Se estima que las viviendas subterráneas a lo largo del mundo albergan entre 40 y 60 millones de personas. Tras un análisis general de las tipologías de viviendas subterráneas, de su localización y de los factores que influyen en su desarrollo se ha introducido el análisis de la vulnerabilidad de este tipo de viviendas ante los riesgos naturales, cuestión que no ha sido estudiada exhaustivamente con anterioridad. Cabe destacar que la localización de las viviendas subterráneas a lo largo del mundo coincide en la mayor parte de los casos con regiones activas sísmicamente, por lo que se lleva a cabo una primera aproximación al estudio de la vulnerabilidad de las viviendas subterráneas frente al riesgo sísmico, teniendo como antecedente el terremoto de la región china de Shaanxi ocurrido en 1556, que afectó a grandes agrupaciones de viviendas subterráneas.