On September 21, 1999 the 921 or Chi Chi earthquake struck the centre of Taiwan. The earthquake’s magnitude was ML 7.3, and MW 7.7 and the epicentre depth was 8 km. The earthquake hit at 1:47 am, and left about 2,471 dead and 11,305 seriously injured. Over 10,000 buildings collapsed and direct losses were estimated at US$14 billion. This paper describes some of our preliminary findings on a Nat...

This research investigates the public's trust in risk-managing organizations after suffering serious damage from a major disaster. It is natural for public trust to decrease in organizations responsible for mitigating the damage. However, what about trust in organizations that address hazards not directly related to the disaster? Based on the results of surveys conducted by a national institute...

On 16 July 1990, an earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale struck the island of Luzon, Philippines. A case-control study was carried out to identify the risk factors for earthquake-related injuries and at the same time observations were made on the rescue efforts. Being hit by falling objects was the leading cause of injury (34%). Those injured during the tremor were more likely to have ...

According to the human consequences caused by emergencies and disasters, the health system especially hospitals, are among the first places that are influenced by this events. Continuity of service provision by hospitals after emergencies and disasters is one of the important issues that should be taken into consideration by all people and authorities. For hospitals, it is necessary to promote ...

It is difficult to know how many fatalities and injuries in an earthquake may have been avoided by a mitigating action because the result without the mitigation can usually not be estimated with a useful reliability. The case of the evacuation before the 1975, M 7.3, Haicheng earthquake offers a rare opportunity to quantitatively estimate the number of casualties saved. We show that the compute...