SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC

CONSEQUENCES OF
EARTHQUAKES
PRESENTED BY:- SHAIMA AMJAD
SHAIKH TOUSIF
Earthquake Consequences and
their acceptability
• The primary consequence of concern in earthquakes is
human casualties, i.e. deaths and injuries. The number of
casualties in any given event varies enormously,
depending on the magnitude, location and area of the
earthquake. Number of casualty counts is caused by the
collapse of buildings made of heavy, weak material such as
unreinforced masonry or earth.
• The physical consequence of earthquakes for human
beings are generally viewed under two headings:
• (A) Damage and injury to human beings
• (B) Damage to the built and natural environments
• These physical effects in turn are considered as to their
social and economic consequences:
• 1. Number of casualties
• 2. Trauma and bereavement
• 3. Loss of employment
• 4. Loss of employee/skills
• 5. Loss of heritage
• 6. Material damage cost
• 7. Business interruption
• 8. Consumption of materials and
• energy (sustaining resources)
• 9. Macro-economic impacts
• The above physical and socio-economic consequences
should be taken into account when the acceptable
consequences are being decided.
• Both financially and technically, it is possible to reduce
these consequences for strong earthquake shaking. The
basic planning aims are to minimize the use of land
subject to the worst shaking or ground damage effects,
such as fault rupture, landslides or liquefaction. The basic
design aims are therefore confined (a) to the reduction of
loss of life in any earthquake either through collapse or
through secondary damage such as falling debris or
earthquake-induced fire, and (b) to the reduction of
damage and loss of use of the built environment.
• Naturally some facilities demand greater earthquake
resistance than others, because of their greater social
and/or financial significance. It is important to determine
in the design brief not only the more obvious intrinsic
value of the structure, its contents, and function or any
special parts thereof, but also the survival value placed
upon it by the owner.
• Some of the most vital facilities to remain functional
after destructive earthquakes are hospitals, fire and
police stations, government offices, dams, bridges, radio
and telephone services, schools, energy sources or in
short, anything vitally concerned with preventing major
loss of life in the first instance and with the operation of
emergency services afterwards. The consequences of
damage to structures housing intrinsically dangerous
goods or processes is another category of consideration,
and concerns the potential hazards of fire, explosion,
toxicity, or pollution represented by installations such as
liquid petroleum gas storage facilities or nuclear power
or nuclear weapon plants.
• These types of consequences often become difficult to
consider logically, as strong emotions are provoked by
the thought of them.
Economic Consequences of
Earthquakes
• The economic consequences of earthquakes occur both
before and after the event. Those arising before the
event include protection provisions such as earthquake
resistance of new and existing facilities, insurance
premiums and provision of earthquake emergency
services.
• Post-earthquake economic consequences include:
• 1. Cost of death and injury
• 2. Cost of damage
• 3. Losses of production and markets
• 4. Insurance claims
• The direct cost of damage depends upon the nature of
the building or other type of facility, its individual
vulnerability and the strength of shaking or other seismic
hazard to which it is subjected. During the budgeting
stages of a design, the cost of providing earthquake
resistance will have to be considered, at least implicitly
or sometimes explicitly such as for upgrading of older
structures. The cost will depend upon such things as the
type of project, site conditions, the form of the structure,
the seismic activity of the region and statutory design
requirements. Unfortunately it is not possible to give
simple guides on costs, although it would not be
misleading to say the most engineering projects
designed for a seismically active area, would spend a
maximum of 10% of the total cost on earthquake
provisions with 5% as an average figure.
• The cost of seismic upgrading of older buildings varies
from as little as about 10% to more than 100% of the
replacement cost, depending on the nature of the
building, the level of earthquake loading used and the
amount of non-structural upgrading that is done at the
same time as the strengthening. Where the client simply
wants the minimum total cost satisfying local regulations,
the usual cost-effectiveness studies comparing different
forms and material will apply. For this knowledge of good
earthquake-resistant forms will of course, hasten the
determination of an economical design whatever the
material chosen.
• In some cases, however, a broader economic study of the
cost involved in prevention and cure of earthquake
damage may be fruitful.
• These costs may be estimated on a probabilistic basis
and a cost-effective analysis can be made to find the
relationship between capital expenditure on earthquake
resistance on the one hand and the cost of repairs and
loss of income together with insurance premiums on the
other. It is most important that at an early stage the
owner should be advised of the relationship between
strength and risk so that he can agree to what he is
buying. Where stringent earthquake regulations must be
followed the question of insurance versus earthquake
resistance may not be a design consideration, but it can
still be important, for example for designing non-
structural partitions to be expandable. However, in some
cases insurance may be more expensive or unavailable
for facilities of high seismic vulnerability
Social and Economic Impact
of Bhuj Earthquake
• The earthquake had a vast geographical spread, affecting
21 out of 25 districts of the state. Though Kachh and
seven other districts—Surendranagar, Patan,
Banaskantha, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Surat—
were the most severely affected, the entire State of
Gujarat reeled under the effects of the earthquake.
There were about 13,800 deaths (about 20,000 deaths
were initially estimated) in the earthquake, a very high
level of mortality in a natural disaster. About 166,000
people were injured, out of which more than 20,000 had
serious injuries. More than a million houses were
destroyed or damaged. It was a collective trauma for the
people of Gujarat. The initial estimate of deaths in the
district Kachchh was close to 18,500.
• It seems a large number of missing people were also included
in the category of dead. When the government checked these
details later at the household level for the purpose of
providing assistance to families of the dead, the number of
deaths was revised downwards to 12,221.
• In a disaster where over 13,000 people died, and almost an
equal number were seriously injured, the economic and social
impact on the affected families would obviously be very
severe. Many of these impacts will be felt gradually, as families
grapple with their sense of grief, loss of income and livelihood,
and psychological trauma. According to a United Nations
report, 94 unaccompanied children have been identified in all
the affected Talukas to date. All of them are under the care of
their close relatives and none is kept in any institution. Many
of these details of losses are imprecise, as the household-
based data are not available yet. However, it is true that a
large number of children have been killed in the earthquake.
• The disruption of social services too will have a long-term
impact on the quality of life. Education and health facilities
have suffered large-scale destruction in the area. Over 11,600
schools have been either damaged or destroyed. Destruction
of hospitals, health care facilities, and child care centers will
have a serious impact on provision of both curative and
preventive services in the area, both much in demand in the
aftermath of the earthquake. More than 20,000 people were
seriously injured. The nature of injuries ranged from
orthopedic and head injuries, to tissue losses, abdominal and
thoracic trauma, and amputations. Widespread damages to
surface and groundwater-based water supply schemes in the
villages and cities will only exacerbate water scarcity for
villagers. The state has experienced a series of natural
disasters in quick succession.The loss of assets and livelihood
resulting from the earthquake will have a serious impact on
the level of consumption and welfare in the state.
DYNAMIC TESTING OF
MODELS
• Conventional earthquake-resistant design involves
ensuring that a structure under design can carry a set of
static lateral loads. The magnitude and distribution of
lateral loads are specified by codes simulate dynamic
forces that the structure would experience in medium-
size earthquakes. The increasing availability of high-
speed digital computers has initiated a trend whereby
earthquake loads are represented by dynamic loads.
Such methods involve dynamic analysis requiring, first,
the idealization of the structure so that a mathematical
model can be formulated and, the determination of the
response of the mathematical model to suitable ground
motion.
• Here it will be assumed that suitable ground motion is available and
focus will be on the idealization of structures and the formulation of
mathematical models.
• The computation involved in performing the dynamic analysis
associated with even a simple mathematical model is extensive.
Hence, it is important that the mathematical model should be as
simple as possible without omitting any features of the prototype
that affect its dynamic behavior appreciably. Therefore, a
considerable number of dynamic tests of real structures have been
conducted in order to determine dynamic properties and establish
mathematical models that can represent the dynamic behavior of
the prototype structures. A second purpose of these dynamic tests
has been to accumulate a body of experimental results on the
damping capacity of structures. Unlike the stiffness and mass
properties of a structure, damping capacity cannot be calculated.
Therefore, informulating a mathematical model it is important that
some experimental results on the damping capacity of structures
similar to the one being modeled are available.
• Since tests on real structures of necessity are conducted at
low amplitudes, little information is found from such tests on
the nonlinear behavior of structures. Thus dynamic tests have
been conducted on small model structures vibrating at large
amplitudes to study nonlinear behavior and energy absorption
characteristics. Data from such tests then can be extended to
an analytical evaluation of the nonlinear behavior of full-scale
models. Thus some of the problems of formulating a
mathematical model in a particular case are revealed.
Subsequently, the mathematical model is subjected to ground
motion to predict the prototype behavior under strong-
motion earthquakes. The quantities normally determined by a
dynamic test of a structure are resonant frequencies, mode
shapes, and damping capacities.
CONCLUSIONS
• As we know, earthquakes have occurred from millions of years without warning
and will continue in future. There is a need to recall lessons repeatedly taught by
past earthquakes. Ground damage observed in field surveys immediately after
several earthquakes is well documented. Damage in the form of ground rupture,
liquefaction, landslides and tsunamis and many others effect in a wide
geographical region. This kind of damage study is a timely reminder of what can
happen in the seismically active areas of the country. It is essential to mitigate the
effects of strong earthquake shaking to reduce loss of life and damage. Structural
damage is the leading cause of death and economic loss in many earthquakes
getting influenced by strength of shaking, duration of shaking, type of subsurface
conditions and type of building. Major causes of damage to buildings during
earthquakes include plan asymmetry, soft story, settlement, torsion, pounding
damage and resonance. Study of behavior of various building structures during
earthquakes based on the past experiences gives insight for preparedness in
future. Earthquakes also disrupt the lifelines which are critical in providing
emergency response recovery, and in restoring society to normal. Lifeline systems
include transportation systems, electric power, telecommunications, water,
sewer, gas and liquid fuels natural and liquid petroleum gas (LPG)
• All behave differently and exhibit varying vulnerability towards
earthquakes. An earthquake always have social and economic
consequences on the settlements including cost of death and
injury, cost of damage, losses of production and markets and
the insurance claims. These days our structures can be tested
for their susceptibility to earthquakes through dynamic testing
models. These dynamic tests are conducted on small model
structures vibrating at large amplitudes to study nonlinear
behavior and energy absorption characteristics. Data from
such tests can be extended to an analytical evaluation of the
nonlinear behavior of full-scale models. In this manner we can
take necessary actions to reduce the vulnerabilities of our
structures in order to minimize the disastrous impact of
earthquakes.