Event-driven Observations and Comprehensive Evaluation for Natural Disaster Assessment in China

The Chinese event-driven observations and disaster assessment system is established so as to make information related to environmental risk and vulnerability easily accessible to decision-makers through this centralized platform. At 7:49 AM on April 14, 2010, an earthquake of 7.1 magnitude collapsed buildings in Yushu County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province. For emergence response, we presented a method for generating seismic intensity map based on seismological mechanism solutions. The disaster assessment system automatically drew the distribution map of affected population 1 hour after the Yushu earthquake. In the case of distribution map of affected population, we made the judgment that the Gyêgu town maybe the worst hit town in the Yushu earthquake because it is not only near the epicenter, but also the capital of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. Then event-driven observations are taken on Gyêgu town. Referring to usable data, the chains of rapid assessment on earthquake disaster were analyzed, and different models were established for assessing affected population, damaged houses and lifelines and comprehensive earthquake loss evaluation. * Corresponding author: Zhi Wang: [email protected]