Urban earthquake hazard: perceived seismic risk and preparedness in Dhaka City,Bangladesh

Bangladesh is vulnerable to seismic events. Experts suspect that if an earthquake with a 7.0 magnitude occurred in large cities of Bangladesh, there would be a major human tragedy due to the structural failure of many buildings. The primary objectives of this paper are to examine seismic risk perception among residents of Dhaka City and investigate their levels of earthquake preparedness. A questionnaire survey conducted among 444 residents of the city provided the major source of data for the paper. The survey results suggest that an overwhelming majority of the respondents were not prepared for a major earthquake, which is anticipated to occur in Dhaka. Multivariate analysis of survey data reveals that value of residential unit and respondent educational levels appear as the most significant determinants of preparedness status of the respondents. This study recommends increasing earthquake awareness and preparedness among residents of Dhaka City.     

In the aftermath of the Qa'yamat:1 the Kashmir earthquake disaster in northern Pakistan

This article explores the local impact of the catastrophic earthquake in northern Pakistan on 8 October 2005. Drawing on field research, including interviews with 40 earthquake survivors, the post-disaster analysis presented here focuses upon risk awareness and the reactions of respondents to the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that devastated areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir State, and North-West Frontier Province. The analysis provides insights into local perceptions of seismic hazard and exposure as well as survivors' priorities with regard to rebuilding and reconstruction. The article suggests that the tragedy of the devastating earthquake is entangled in a deeper knot of causal factors that are social, economic and political in nature. Rapid population growth, urbanisation, changing building styles, environmental degradation and lack of preparedness and mitigation are associated with the circumstances that place the population at risk. Remarks concerning present and future risk reduction efforts are included.     

Cross‐cultural comparisons between the earthquake preparedness models of Taiwan and New Zealand

Taiwan and New Zealand are both located in the Pacific Rim where 81 per cent of the world's largest earthquakes occur. Effective programmes for increasing people's preparedness for these hazards are essential. This paper tests the applicability of the community engagement theory of hazard preparedness in two distinct cultural contexts. Structural equation modelling analysis provides support for this theory. The paper suggests that the close fit between theory and data that is achieved by excluding trust supports the theoretical prediction that familiarity with a hazard negates the need to trust external sources. The results demonstrate that the hazard preparedness theory is applicable to communities that have previously experienced earthquakes and are therefore familiar with the associated hazards and the need for earthquake preparedness. The paper also argues that cross‐cultural comparisons provide opportunities for collaborative research and learning as well as access to a wider range of potential earthquake risk management strategies.     

Operationalizing risk perception and preparedness behavior research for a multi-hazard context

Increasingly, citizens are being asked to take a more active role in disaster risk reduction (DRR), as decentralization of hazard governance has shifted greater responsibility for hazard preparedness actions onto individuals. Simultaneously, the taxonomy of hazards considered for DRR has expanded to include medical and social crises alongside natural hazards. Risk perception research emerged to support decision-makers with understanding how people characterize and evaluate different hazards to anticipate behavioral response and guide risk communication. Since its inception, the risk perception concept has been incorporated into many behavioral theories, which have been applied to examine preparedness for numerous hazard types. Behavioral theories have had moderate success in predicting or explaining preparedness behaviors; however, they are typically applied to a single hazard type and there is a gap in understanding which theories (if any) are suited for examining multiple hazard types simultaneously. This paper first reviews meta-analyses of behavioral theories to better understand performance. Universal lessons learnt are summarized for survey design. Second, theoretically based preparedness studies for floods, earthquakes, epidemics, and terrorism are reviewed to assess the conceptual requirements for a ‘multi-hazard’ preparedness approach. The development of an online preparedness self-assessment and learning platform is discussed.     

Hurricane threat in Florida: examining household perceptions,beliefs, and actions

Households in hurricane-prone regions respond to hurricane threat in numerous ways. Perceptions about their risk and other factors are thought to influence individuals’ decisions to take protective actions for hurricanes. This research investigates the perceptions, behavioral intentions, and actual protective actions of a sample of residents in Miami-Dade County, Florida. We use unique data collected via a telephone survey to investigate a set of factors including risk perception, perceived local government readiness for a hurricane, past hurricane experience, hazard information exposure, and demographics, which have been posited to influence perceived hurricane preparedness, intent to evacuate under hurricane threat, and actual hurricane preparedness. The analytic results show that risk perception was positively associated with perceived preparedness, intent to evacuate, and one of the actual preparedness measures. Perceived local government readiness for a hurricane also was positively related to perceived preparedness and an actual protective measure. The results for other factors, including socio-demographics, varied by dependent variable. Following a report of the results, we discuss the research and policy implications of our findings.     

Earthquake drills and simulations in community-based training and preparedness programmes

The San Francisco, California, bay area is subject to continuous seismic risk. One particular response has been the development of community-based training programmes designed to teach residents basic emergency response skills. Citizens are taught emergency medical techniques, search and rescue, fire suppression and other fundamental response skills. Current estimates in the Bay Area place the number of programmes at more than 100. Many programmes now include an annual community drill to reinforce the training and to evaluate the programme. The study described here is based on an evaluation of an effort initiated by BayNET (Bay Area Neighborhood Emergency Training), a voluntary association of communities with community-based disaster preparedness programmes. In April 1996, BayNET asked all of its members to hold a community earthquake drill. After the drill, a mail survey was conducted of all programme managers. The survey examined the structure and administration of the programmes, training efforts and other related components. This paper describes the typology of drill formats that communities used, the role of the simulation in the city's preparedness efforts, the qualitative costs and benefits, as well as an assessment of the drill based on survey respondents.     

数字江苏中的防震减灾数字系统

为推进经济的可持续与跨越式发展，配合 “数字江苏” 的建设，最大限度地减轻地震灾害所造成的损失，在 “数字江苏” 中建设防震减灾数字系统势在必行。 本文从防震减灾在可持续与跨越式发展战略中的地位和作用、防震减灾数字系统的组成、 “数字江苏” 中如何包含防震减灾数字系统、防震减灾数字系统建设进程及展望等几方面进行了探讨。     

Immediate behavioural responses to earthquakes in Christchurch,New Zealand,and Hitachi,Japan

This study examines people's immediate responses to earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Hitachi, Japan. Data collected from 257 respondents in Christchurch and 332 respondents in Hitachi revealed notable similarities between the two cities in people's emotional reactions, risk perceptions, and immediate protective actions during the events. Respondents' physical, household, and social contexts were quite similar, but Hitachi residents reported somewhat higher levels of emotional reaction and risk perception than did Christchurch residents. Contrary to the recommendations of emergency officials, the most frequent response of residents in both cities was to freeze. Christchurch residents were more likely than Hitachi residents to drop to the ground and take cover, whereas Hitachi residents were more likely than Christchurch residents to evacuate immediately the building in which they were situated. There were relatively small correlations between immediate behavioural responses and demographic characteristics, earthquake experience, and physical, social, or household context.     

The 1988 earthquake in soviet armenia: implications for earthquake preparedness

An earthquake registering 6.9 on the Richter scale hit the northern part of the Armenian Republic of the Soviet Union on 7 December 1988, resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries. The majority of these resulted from the collapse of inadequately designed and constructed buildings. Analysis of the effects of the Armenian earthquake on the population, as well as of the rescue and medical response, has strong implications for earthquake preparedness and response in other seismically vulnerable parts of the world. Specifically, this paper will recommend a number of important endeavours deemed necessary to improve medical planning, preparedness and response to earthquakes. Strengthening the self-reliance of the community in disaster preparedness is suggested as the best way to improve the effectiveness of relief operations. In earthquake-prone areas, training and education in basic first aid and methods of rescue should be an integral part of any community preparedness programme.     

抓住机遇,建设新世纪专群结合的地震监测预报系统

建设专家为主、专群结合的地震监测预报体系是当前防震减灾的重点工作之一。通过回顾浙江省“九五”期间建设地震监测系统的实践 ,认为在当前科技水平和管理体制下 ,专群结合是建设好现代化地震监测预报系统的重要保证。省局必须正确处理好省级以下地震部门工作中的几个问题 ,发挥专业队伍在监测预报体系中的主导作用 ,才能做好新时期的地震监测预报工作。     

充分发挥科技资料在防震减灾事业中的作用

为了充分发挥科技资料在防震减灾事业中的作用,就如何改进地震科技资料的管理方式、提高地震科技资料的管理水平、为防震减灾一线科研人员提供最满意的服务进行了论述.     

A baseline assessment of emergency planning and preparedness in Italian universities

Besides offering teaching and research services, schools and universities also must provide for the safety and security of their employees, students, and visitors. This paper describes emergency preparedness in a sample of Italian universities. In particular it examines risk perception within a specific professional category (university safety and security officers) in a specific cultural context (Italy). In addition, it discusses the transposition and implementation in a European Union (EU) member state of EU Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989, on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers. The findings highlight heterogeneous and fragmented emergency management models within the Italian university system, underlining the need for a stricter framework of standardised safety protocols and emergency management guidelines. The study also points out that enhancing emergency planning and preparedness in Italian universities entails increasing safety leadership, employee engagement and individual responsibility for safety and security; essentially, it necessitates improving the culture of risk prevention.     

房屋建筑的震害矩阵计算与设防投资比确定

本文包括两个内容：１研究了现有建筑的设防延伸率,给出了用设防延伸率计算震害矩阵的分析方法,并用框架、厂房的计算破坏比与包头西地震调查得到的破坏比进行了比较,二者基本吻合;２．通过咨询抗震设计专家,确定并给出了框架、砖结构、厂房的设防投资比。     

Perception of earthquake risk in Agadir,Morocco: A case study from a Muslim community

Earthquakes are separated from other hazards in meaning, significance, and risk perception throughout the Islamic World due to their specific focus in their own chapter or surah “al-Zalzala” (99th) in the Qur'an. Unlike earthquakes that are discussed in terms or the Judgment Day or as divine punishment or retribution against the disbelieving or hypocritical—other natural hazards like floods, tornadoes, and landslides are rarely discussed. An extensive survey of earthquake survivors and longtime residents was undertaken to better understand the perceptions of seismic risk in Agadir, Morocco where two moderate earthquakes razed the city in 1960 leaving 15,000 dead and 25,000 injured. Most of the deaths were attributed to faulty construction (along with standards and enforcement), inaddition to poor evacuation plans.

During the summer of 2002, more than 250 earthquake survivors and residents were surveyed and interviewed for their knowledge and perception of the disaster forty years before. Surveys were conducted in Arabic, French and English and included questions and Likertscaled responses including extensive interviews in the hopes of obtaining ideas of their potential quake recurrence, seismology, current construction standard policies, and local and regional planning strategies. In addition, reviews the Qur'an, Hadith and classical and contemporary tafasir texts were used to investigate the guiding passages used in Islamic discussions of “al-Zalzala”.

It was found that younger persons (<25yo) were more likely to believed that brick, mortar and cement structures were always safer and stronger during and after a tremor, regardless as to whether they are iron-reinforced or sub-standard (and hazardous) stone or brick infilled. After the 1960 disaster, speedy recovery efforts often undermined concrete construction and reinforcement techniques since such ‘rebar’ was relatively unavailable. Even today, inferior and seismically unstable construction practices are widely used.

It was found that television-watchers considered themselves less knowledgeable about earthquakes, when in fact many aspects of the1960 event and earthquakes in general, were more widely understood by this group, supporting the notion that the medium of televisionis the most widely used, efficient, and fastest mass communication and education tool.

Less-educated respondents in general tended to attribute earthquakes to divine action and retribution. All questions, however, concerning the possibility of quake recurrence frequency or magnitude caused an overwhelming refusal to answer, or with the reply of ‘Allahu a'lam’ or “God is wisest”—implying or directly stating that any attempt at earthquake forecasting, quake-related construction, advanced architectural standards for seismic safety, and/or related education was ‘haram’ or prohibited by Islam.

Further discussions with participants in Agadir indicated that any guess, awareness or prediction was in fact, fortune-telling and therefore an act forbidden by the Qur'an and Hadith.

Finally, the less educated were more likely to say that Allah protected those who were devout and considered scientific assessment as futile, forecasting as forbidden, or new construction technologies as a waste since only the ‘kafir’ (non-Muslim) or ‘munafiq’ (hypocrite) were at risk to death or injury from an earthquake. These conclusions are important toward gaining an insight of perception and risky behavior in a questionably constructed city with now more than 600,000 people 40 years later, and in a region laced by active faulting.     

淮南市防震减灾决策系统的建立

在机制上将一个地市(淮南市)的地震预报与防震决策融为一个动态整体,从而建立起一个实用性强的防震减灾决策系统,使城市各种防震对策的生成有了更科学的基础。成为市政府在防震减灾决策中不可缺少的工具。     

Making sense of natural hazard mitigation: Personal,social and cultural influences

Worldwide, recognition of the growing risk faced by communities in many countries from natural hazard events has stimulated interest in promoting people's capacity to co-exist with often beneficial, but occasionally hazardous, natural processes by encouraging the adoption of preparedness measures. Starting from recognition that levels of hazard preparedness are generally low, this paper examines how people's decisions about hazard mitigation derive from how they interpret the hazards, their relationship with the hazards and the sources of information about hazards. It describes how interpretive processes at the person (outcome expectancy), community (community participation and collective efficacy) and societal (empowerment and trust) level interact to predict levels of hazard preparedness. The data support the argument that the effectiveness of public hazard education strategies community preparedness can be increased by integrating risk management activities with community development strategies. The cross-cultural validity of the model is discussed using data from communities in New Zealand, Indonesia and Japan. Testing the model across countries and hazards (e.g. earthquakes, volcanic hazards) supports its all-hazards and cross-cultural applicability. The theoretical (e.g. identifying the degree to which the processes that underpin how people respond to hazard threats are culturally equivalent) and practical (e.g. providing a common basis for collaborative learning and research between countries and providing risk management agencies in different cultures with access to a wider range of risk management options) implications of the cross-cultural equivalence of the model are discussed.     

新时期防震减灾宣传工作机制及政策研究

信息杜会里人们意识形态具有网络虚拟和现实世界的两面性，这给防震减灾宣传教育提出了新的挑战和际遇。本文分析了信息杜会基本特点、防震减灾宣传工作的积极和制约因素，在借鉴现代企业管理模式的基础上，提出了新时期防震减灾宣传工作的机制与政策。     

Digital disparities and vulnerability: mobile phone use,information behaviour,and disaster preparedness in Southeast Asia

This paper proposes an ecological view to investigate how disparities in mobile technology use reflect vulnerabilities in communities vis‐à‐vis disaster preparedness. Data (n=1,603) were collected through a multi‐country survey conducted equally in rural and urban areas of Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, and Vietnam, where mobile technology has become a dominant and ubiquitous communication and information medium. The findings show that smartphone users' routinised use of mobile technology and their risk perception are significantly associated with disaster preparedness behaviour indirectly through disaster‐related information sharing. In addition to disaster‐specific social support, smartphone users' disaster‐related information repertoires are another strong influencing factor. In contrast, non‐smartphone users are likely to rely solely on receipt of disaster‐specific social support as the motivator of disaster preparedness. The results also reveal demographic and rural–urban differences in disaster information behaviour and preparedness. Given the increasing shift from basic mobile phone models to smartphones, the theoretical and policy‐oriented implications of digital disparities and vulnerability are discussed.     

Factors affecting the evacuation decisions of coastal households during Cyclone Aila in Bangladesh

Despite sincere efforts by concerned agencies and recent improvements in hazard warnings, thousands of at-risk people did not evacuate during Aila, a category-I tropical cyclone that struck southwestern coastal Bangladesh in 2009. This study investigated the responses of the people affected by Aila to cyclone warnings and associated evacuation orders, and unveiled behavioural aspects that explain why they did or did not comply with the evacuation orders. Utilising the primary data collected from 420 households living in the severely affected coastal sub-district Koyra, located in Khulna District, this study found that although more than 97% of the households had received cyclone warnings and evacuation orders before Aila's landfall, only around 26% had evacuated. We also examined this study's empirical findings for factors that had dissuaded people from complying with the evacuation orders. Relevant test statistics along with results from principal component analysis suggested that the significant and systematic absenteeism of households from disaster preparedness training appears to be one of the key determinants that affected their evacuation decisions, along with factors related to warning messages, the attributes of cyclone shelters, risk perception, and socioeconomic aspects. A number of recommendations are also presented in this study for people at risk to improve their evacuation rates in future emergencies, not only to save their own lives but also to save their livestock.     

经济增长速度对抗震设防标准的需求

如果说西方发达国家的抗震设防标准是和其经济增长速度相适应的,那么中国也应如此。 本文建议了两种方法,用以估计适合我国国情的抗震设防标准:①理论归纳,②类比推理。前者虽然在逻辑上比较严密,但由于涉及到各界专家和管理阶层的协作,非笔者力所能及。 本文以第二种方法展开讨论。其要义是:设想西方发达国家的经济增长速度不是1％～4％,而是中国的8％～12％,这些国家的专家会如何修改他们的抗震设防标准?按此思路,我国的抗震设防标准应向下调整。以一般工业与民用建筑为例,可用P_(20)(a)=10％,取代现行国际惯例的P_(50)(a)=10％。 这样做的后果大体是:设防地震烈度在学术误差范围内降低半度,而抗震投资则以指数方式下降。