## 2 The Study Area  
### Geodynamic and Geomorphological Setting  
The Ecuadorian subduction zone is the main seismogenic structure and is divided in five well-differentiated tectonic segments [31]. The province of Manabi has the shortestseismic recurrence associated with subduction earthquakes, where the northeast moving Nazca oceanic plate collides and subducts the continental segment of the North-Andean block or Caribbean and South American continental crust (Figure 1) [32]. The recorded seismic history for the province of Manabi begins in 1896, where earthquakes with magnitudes in the order of 7 degrees are recurrent for about every 20 years, while the strongest ones are in the order of 8 degrees for about every 70 to 80 years (Table 1).  
For the province of Manabi, many of its cities are built in narrow valleys between hills, where saturated and unsaturated soils of alluvial and alluvial-colluvial environments are predominant. The highest intensities of coseismic geological effects have been documented in these types of soils. For colluvial soils, coherent and disruptive landslides have been evaluated, while for soft and loose soils, various types of soil liquefaction have been recorded. In the current study, reference is made to the city of Chone, which is the capital of the largest carton in the province of Manabi, and with little or scarce geotechnical information on the subsoil in the urban area. An analysis of the seismic risk is analyzed for the entire Chone carton, where its total basin area is approximately 3519 km\({}^{2}\) with an average slope of 18.15%, accompanied by elevations that do not exceed 120 m.a.s.l. Urban areas have a degree of inclination that corresponds to 4-35\({}^{\circ}\) and are associated with alluvial deposits. The soft soils correspond to areas of alluvial-colluvial and alluvial plains, which presented settlements, soil liquefaction and lateral displacements during the Pedernales earthquake in 2016.  
The city of Chone is located in earthquake-prone areas, so its close-by distance from the epicenter of the 2016 earthquake. Chone is the third most populous city in the province of Manabi with 73,681 inhabitants with a surface area of 17 km\({}^{2}\)[33]. Indeed, during the  
Figure 1: Geodynamic setting of Ecuador and its surrounding. The Galapagos Islands and the Carnegie Ridge form part of the oceanic Nazca plate, which subducts below the South American continent. Note the location of the most recent earthquake in 2016 in coastal Ecuador. Adapted from [32].  
Pedernales earthquake in 2016, the structural failure of state health buildings was evidenced. The same buildings with the combination of natural periods of the ground caused the total collapse of the main hospital in the city, increasing the level of health emergency due to the poor response to care for the injured, where mobile tents then functioned as a hospital for several months [29]. In addition, a large amount of structural damage was recorded, with a total of 662 homes being damaged, of which 466 correspond to the urban area [22; 34]. In these areas, they present different types of soils for the Borbon formation, basically comprising grayish-blue calcareous sandstones and for the Onzole formation, shales to bluish mudstone siltstones interspersed with white volcanic tuffs and sandstone slats [35]. Furthermore, there are alluvial terraces with saturated and partially saturated soils [28; 34]. These geological conditions allowed the elaboration of a map with 21 capable geological faults as illustrated in Figure 2, corresponding to sea floor and continental segments [36; 37].