The Global Role of Earthquake Fatalities in Decision-Making: Earthquakes Versus Other Causes of Fatalities

Abstract eng:
Earthquakes have caused over 2.3 million fatalities since 1900. They have also been responsible for the equivalent loss of over $1.25 trillion USD of human capital derived economic effects in total across the globe from casualties. However, a key consideration for decision-makers implementing earthquake sensitive design in different countries around the world is the risk of an earthquake death compared to other types of deaths in their country. Additionally, the role of life safety is increasing, with risk-based earthquake resistant codes becoming more commonplace. On an annualised level, very few countries show earthquakes to be one of the highest probability methods for death. However, in particular years with large events these totals can easily exceed the total death count for a particular country. An example of this is Haiti, with the equivalent earthquake death rate in 2010 exceeding the total death rate in the country due to all other causes. In this study, various methods of analysis are undertaken for earthquake fatalities from around the world to show trends and the relative importance of earthquake effects. In this paper, the creation of empirical annualised ratios of earthquake fatalities from the year 1500 onwards vs. other methods of fatalities (cancer, floods, diseases, accidents etc.) for each country using the CATDAT damaging earthquakes database is undertaken. In this study, around 50 countries have been shown to have at least one single earthquake event year exceeding that of all traffic fatalities, and 15 countries have higher than the equivalent total death rate of the country. On a province level, the number of countries having such an event significantly increases. Next, the production of stochastic based analysis derived annualised ratios of earthquake fatalities using the CATDAT rapid fatality estimation methodology is examined to shows the inherent risk in countries, such as Australia, building from low earthquake-resistant double brick and brick veneer construction. Using the stochastic risk assessment methodology, the production of F-N (fatality vs. probability of exceedance) curves for earthquake fatalities vs. other types of disasters for an example from Eastern Europe and Central Asian countries as well as a comparison with existing codes are shown. These F-N curves provide decision-makers with a tool to inform an equivalent evaluation of risk from mortality causes that occur on a reasonably constant level (cancer, traffic accidents etc.) vs. sporadically high death rates (natural disasters, pandemics etc.) by taking a view of temporal risk. This tool for disaster mitigation decisions as well as a historical analysis, stochastic analysis and the value of life are discussed for future decision-making purposes.

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