Abstract:
Pakistan is located in a seismically active area. Several severe earthquakes have struck the region in recent history, killing thousands and destroying infrastructure worth millions. An Earthquake Loss Assessment Framework is the need of the hour. The framework will provide reliable estimates of human and economic losses due to earthquakes. These results will be used to organize and direct search and rescue activities in the earthquake affected area. An Earthquake Loss Assessment Tool is developed for estimating earthquake losses in real time. The tool uses geographic, geologic, demographic and building inventory data to calculate the human and economic losses in near real time. A review of available literature is also presented to develop a general understanding of the topic. During the literature review, it was determined that no attenuation relationship is available specifically for Pakistan. Therefore, Ambraseys (2005) attenuation relationship was used for ground motion attenuation. Similarly, it was observed that building vulnerability curves for all building classes of Pakistan were not derived. GESI (2001) vulnerability curves were utilized for the purpose of determining the Mean Damage Ratio for different building classes. The results obtained were compared and were satisfactory. Initially, the tool is applicable to the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, KPK and FATA. Other regions are not yet covered due to unavailability of data. The Awaran Earthquake of 2013 and Kashmir earthquake of 2005 was used as a case study for validation of the tool. The results obtained are satisfactory keeping in view the accuracy and suitability of data and models utilized in the development of this tool.
