TEHRAN EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE ESTIMATION SYSTEM, A REAL TIME SEISMIC DAMAGE AND CASUALTY ESTIMATION TOOL

This paper describes the main components of a real-time damage and casualty estimation system which has been designed and developed for the Tehran Disaster Mitigation and Management Organization (TDMMO). TDMMO has recently implemented an automated early damage estimation system in order to provide first hand estimates of damages and casualty caused by potential future earthquakes. The system consists of several computer software tools plus a dens accelerometer network, providing real-time measurement of ground accelerations in the city of Tehran. The system with its strong ground motion network, is in charge of automatic recording and zoning of peak ground acceleration for some 3000 city commune zones at the time of earthquake. Real-time building damage as well as statistics on human casualties are estimated in minutes after the earthquake, using a computer damages estimation tools. Damage estimation system relies on a detailed database of building stocks, consisting of building database on parcel resolution for the whole city. A library of building vulnerability and casualty functions are used for this step. Upon real earthquake, the system developed under this study, generates tens of hazard, damage and casualty maps and tables automatically and distributes them to disaster managers and aid agencies at the regional and municipality levels. The system also benefits from IT communication technology such as email, SMS, fax and internet to transfer real-time damage estimates to wider users. The system is also equipped with a configuration management tool, allowing various customizations of the system and results for use by wider users in disaster organizations. This system since its released in early 2010 has been working continuously in the disaster control room in the Tehran Municipality. Main component and scenario loss estimated are presented in this paper.

Keywords:

Loss estimation , Emergency response , Real time damage estimation , TEDES