The Twenty-seventh KKHTCNN Symposium on Civil Engineering
November 10-12, 2014, Shanghai, China

Investigate on automation of earthquake damage estimation system
Yuta TAKAHASHI1, Kyousuke YAMAMOTO2 and Yuki SAKAI3
1Master student, 2Assistant Professor, 3Professor
1
College of Engineering System; 2,3Faculty of System & Information, University of Tsukuba,
1-1-1 Ten-No-Dai, Tsukuba, 305-8573, Japan
1s1420906@u.tsukuba.ac.jp; 2yamamoto_k@kz.tsukuba.ac.jp; 3sakai@kz.tsukuba.ac.jp

ABSTRACTThis paper describes a new automatic estimation system of seismic damage. By this system, the damages in an urban
area due to a mega earthquake can be estimated in 30 minutes by reducing the focused area automatically.
INTRODUCTION
To prevent the damage caused by disasters is a very important issue, even in these days. However, it is unrealistic to doit perfectly. When a mega earthquake occurs, the quick and accurate deployment of rescue teams is necessary. In the South
Hyogo prefecture earthquake in 1995, the rescue activities by neighborhood who lived in damaged area worked effectively
because the neighborhood generally knows their situation instantly, while the ambulance service could not know the priorinformation.iTo solve the problem, a damage estimation system was developed. This system uses the average velocity of observation
point and each mesh data which was made by a national census. For quick rescue, it is necessary to calculate faster. At
Kobe city, Hyogo in 1995, 10% of victim could survive if the rescue got in 15 minutesii based on an accurate information.
However, usual estimation system is manual, so that it is difficult to calculate in midnight or holiday. In this study, anautomatic system is developed. Moreover, it is necessary to use more accurate indices based on the vibration data and thenational census for more exact rescue. Because of the limitation of the budget, it is difficult to set more observation points,
though it is the best way.
The purpose of this study is to propose a new method of faster calculation by reducing the estimation area without
decreasing accuracy.
EARTHQUAKE DAMAGE ESTIMATION SYSTEM
There are official index such as “Magnitude” and “Scale of Earthquake”, which Japanese government uses. However,in this study, another index which uses critical periodic band is applied to estimation because it corresponds the actual
damage better than estimation based on the official ones.iii And we didn’t only calculate damage rate but also number ofpeople in the collapsed building because it is more useful than damage rate to know situation of damage.
Earthquake damage estimation system requires a vibration data of observation point for calculation. The spectrum of
the vibration data is interpolated on whole area by triangle linear interpolation. The damage rate of each mesh is estimatedby the interpolated data and damage function iv.Finally, the number of people in the damaged building is calculated by thedamage rate and data of number of people in the building which was predicted from census population database.v
DEVELOPED AUTOMATIC SYSTEM TO ESTIMATE DAMAGE OF EARTHQUAKEFirst, to solve the problem which is difficult to estimate in midnight and holiday, we developed automatic estimation
system which has watched home page of NIED (National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention)
without special calculator.

Second, the usual system used map which cannot be zoomed in and out after output. But we enabled to indicate on
google map by using Google Maps API.
Finally, to examine this system, we experimented it about 4 passed earthquakes which is called Noto Hantou Earthquake
in 2007(NH-2007), The Niigataken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake in 2007(NCO-2007), The Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake
in 2008(IMN-2008), and Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake in 2011(TRPC-2011).
RESULT OF EXPERIMENTThe parameters of four earthquake cases are Table 1. The parameter of TRPC-2011 is much large than others.
Estimation time is Table 2 and number of mesh which has damaged building is Table 3. The result shows high accuracy
comparing with the actual damage and passed estimation (Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4). The number of outputted meshis enough small to display except TRPC-2011. It can also display on portable device like smartphone. Figure.1 – 5 areview of google map for each earthquake.
Each map fits real data and passed estimation. But map of TRPC-2011 cannot display on usual computer because
program of Google Maps API is written by JavaScript, so that it needs over spec for computers to describe mesh. We solved
the problem to reduce storage which has useless data.
However, this way can be used for TRPC-2011 only because vibration characteristic of TRPC-2011 has different
periodic band with critical one and there were less damage by quake. vi If mega earthquake which has critical characteristic
occurs, estimation cannot display because of over capacity.
Besides, estimation time of TRPC-2011 was 2 hour over. It was too longer to supply rescues, and this result shows thatlarger damage, the longer time and larger capacity of data. As long as setting up calculator which can calculate whole ofcountry is not realistic, it is efficient to restrict calculated area.
RESTRICTION OF ESTIMATED AREA
In the past method, the estimation system calculated whole quaked area. But in TRPC-2011, calculation time becomesover 2 hour. And the estimation time of TRPC-2011 is almost occupied by time of read and interpolation (Figure 5). For
example, when we calculate 10 times 6 mesh which is 60 mesh in green box on Figure 6, the estimation time will be about
10 minutes without less accuracy because damage is calculated by only 3 observation point around them.
Table 1 Parameters of the subjected earthquake

The Name of Earthquake

NH-2007

NCO-2007

IMN-2008

TRPC-2011

Noto Hantou
Earthquake

Niigataken Chuetsu-oki
Earthquake

Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku
Earthquake

Tohoku Region Pacific
Coast Earthquake

Amount of data（MB）
Mesh toward longitude(num.)
Length toward longitude（km）
Mesh toward latitude(num.)
Length toward latitude（km）
Whole mesh(num.)

22598
49
98499604

236
127
63.5
73
36.5
9271

168
150
75
783911700

458
1821
910.5
506
253921426

Table 2 Parameters of the subjected earthquake
The Name of Earthquake

NH-2007

NCO-2007

IMN-2008

TRPC-2011

Noto Hantou
Earthquake

Niigataken Chuetsu-oki
Earthquake

Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku
Earthquake

Tohoku Region Pacific
Coast Earthquake

Download data
Decompressed
Estimation and Mapping
Total Time
Total Time written by minutes

270
22348
640
10.7

287
22
331
640
10.7

288
36251
575
9.58

512
3272447788
129.8(Unit: sec)

Table 3 Parameters of the subjected earthquake
The Name of Earthquake
Number of the outputted mesh

NH-2007

NCO-2007

IMN-2008

TRPC-2011

Noto Hantou
Earthquake

Niigataken Chuetsu-okiEarthquake

Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku
Earthquake

Tohoku Region Pacific
Coast Earthquake

58115291859

Figure 1 Noto Hantou Earthquake in 2007(NH-2007),

Figure 2 The Niigataken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake inAnamizu in Ishikawa

2007(NCO-2007), Kashiwazaki in Niigata.

Figure 3 The Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake in

Figure 4 Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake in2008(IMN-2008), Osaki in Miyagi

2011(TRPC-2011), the middle part of Miyagi

Figure 5 Rate of calculation time in TRPC-2011

Figure 6 Damage estimation result for Tohoku Region
Pacific Coast Earthquake in 2011(TRPC-2011), Center ofOsaki in Miyagi

CONCLUSION REMARKSIn this paper, we propose automatic earthquake damage estimation system and new method to reduce estimation timeby restricting calculated area. Automatic system is efficient to estimate when we cannot run the program. Almost estimation
time of sample earth quake is less than 15 minutes, but in case of mega earthquake like Tohoku Region Pacific Coast
Earthquake in 2011, it is suggested to take a long time for estimation by result of this experiment. To reduce the time
substantially, we proposed restricting calculated area and estimate the time by restricting.
ACKNOWLEDGE
All earthquake data are provided from NIED, Japan Meteorological Agency, and Railway Technical Research Institute.
We appreciate for their cooperation.
REFERENCEi

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Kinki Regional Development Bureau, Japan,
http://www.kkr.mlit.go.jp/plan/daishinsai/1.html
ii
Hanshin Awaji daishinsaishi by Asahi Shimbun,1995iii
Report of conference about seismic intensity, 2009, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Ministryof Internal Affairs and Communications Fire and Disaster Management Agency.
iv

Development of Population Data Classified According to Building Type for Earthquake Damage Estimation, ARAI Kensuke,

SAKAI Yuki, Japan Association for Earthquake Engineering,No.5,2010v

Development of Population Data Classified According to Building Type for Earthquake Damage Estimation, ARAI Kensuke,
SAKAI Yuki, Japan Association for Earthquake Engineering,No.5,2010
vi
CORRESPONDENCE OF STRONG GROUND MOTIONS AND DAMAGE TO HOUSES AND BUILDINGS IN THE 2011
TOHOKU-CHIHO TAIHEIYO-OKI EARTHQUAKE:-Seismic intensity measure to evaluate heavy structural damage to houses andbuildings more accurately-,Sakai Yuki,2013