Estimating Losses Due To a Recurrence of the 1960 M9.5 Megathrust Earthquake in Southern Chile

Abstract eng:
Understanding the risk due to natural and man-made catastrophes is one of the primary steps in evaluating the capacity of a community to manage disasters and in creating resilience. In seismic prone regions, the need for estimating possible losses due to future earthquakes has long been recognized by emergency planners, financial organizations and the insurance industry. This study presents an application of the AIR earthquake model for South America in estimating possible losses from a recurrence of the 1960, M9.5 earthquake in Chile which also spawned a large tsunami. In Chile, the earthquake and tsunami caused extensive damage in the coastal area and in particular in the city of Valdivia. The economic loss from this event has been estimated between $250 and $1,500 million USD in 1960 values. Considering the significant growth in population and urbanization as well as advancement in engineering and construction, this paper provides an estimate of possible direct losses due to shaking, liquefaction, and tsunami for building properties (excluding infrastructure) using a high resolution (1km by 1km grid) database of the current building inventory. It is shown that the total direct losses not including business interruption can be as large as 16.2 trillion CLP (~USD $29b).

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