This paper provides a comparison between Earthquake Loss Estimation (ELE) software packages and their application using an “Open Source Procedure for Assessment of Loss using Global Earthquake Modelling software” (OPAL). The OPAL procedure was created to provide a framework for optimisation of a Global Earthquake Modelling process through: 1. overview of current and new components of earthquake...

China has experienced major earthquakes recently. The 2014 Ludian earthquake struck Ludian County, Yunnan, (Mw =6.1) on 3 August, 2014. On April 20th 2013, Ya’an earthquake (Mw =6.9), on April 14th 2010, Qinghai earthquake (Mw =7.1), on July 9th 2009, Yunnan earthquake (Mw =6.0), and on May 12th 2008, Sichuan earthquake (Mw =7.9) struck China. Among these disasters, the most devastating, the Si...

Catastrophe models capable of rapid data ingestion, loss estimation and visualization are required for postevent analysis of catastrophic events such as earthquakes. This paper describes the design and development of the Automated Post-Event Earthquake Loss Estimation and Visualization (APE-ELEV) system for real-time estimation and visualization of losses incurred due to earthquakes. A model fo...

The December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was the worst tsunami disaster in the world’s history with more than 200,000 casualties. This disaster was attributed to giant size (magnitude M ~ 9, source length >1000 km) of the earthquake, lacks of expectation of such an earthquake, tsunami warning system, knowledge and preparedness for tsunamis in the Indian Ocean countries. In the last ten years, sei...

Various analytical approaches to performance-based earthquake engineering are in development. This paper summarizes the approach being pursued by the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center. It works in four stages: hazard analysis, structural analysis, damage analysis, and loss analysis. In the hazard analysis, one evaluates the seismic hazard at the facility site, producing samp...

The Wenchuan earthquake of 12 May 2008 is the most destructive earthquake in China in the past 30 years in terms of property damage and human losses. In order to understand the earthquake process and the geo-morphological factors affecting the seismic hazard, we simulated the strong ground motion caused by the earthquake, incorporating three-dimensional (3D) earth structure, finite-fault ruptur...

Frequency-magnitude distributions, and their associated uncertainties, are of key importance in statistical seismology. When fitting these distributions , the assumption of Gaussian residuals is invalid since event numbers are both discrete and of unequal variance. In general, the observed number in any given magnitude range is described by a binomial distribution which, given a large total num...

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Earthquake Early Warning Systems (EEWS), based on real-time prediction of ground motion or structural response measures, may play a role in reducing vulnerability and/or exposition of buildings and lifelines. In fact, recently seismologists developed efficient methods for rapid estimation of event features by means of limited information of the P-waves. Then, when an event is occurring, probabi...

This paper develops a two-stage stochastic program and solution procedure to optimize the selection of seismic retrofit strategies to increase the resilience of electric power systems to earthquake hazards. The model explicitly considers the range of earthquake events that are possible and, for each, an approximation to the distribution of damage that is experienced. This is important because e...