Development and application of a tsunami fragility curve of the 2015 tsunami in Coquimbo, Chile

Abstract

Abstract. The last earthquake that affected the city of Coquimbo took place in September 2015 and had a magnitude of M w = 8.3, resulting in localized damage in low-lying areas of the city. In addition, another seismic gap north of the 2015 earthquake rupture area has been identified; therefore, a significant earthquake (M w = 8.2 to 8.5) and tsunami could occur in the near future. The present paper develops a tsunami fragility curve for the city of Coquimbo based on field survey data and tsunami numerical simulations. The inundation depth of the 2015 Chile tsunami in Coquimbo was estimated by means of numerical simulation with the Non-hydrostatic Evolution of Ocean WAVEs (NEOWAVE) model and five nested grids with a maximum grid resolution of 10 m. The fragility curve exhibited behavior similar to that of other curves in flat areas in Japan, where little damage was observed at relatively high inundation depths. In addition, it was observed that Coquimbo experienced less damage than Dichato (Chile); in fact, at an inundation depth of 2 m, Dichato had a ∼ 75 % probability of damage, while Coquimbo proved to have only a 20 % probability. The new fragility curve was used to estimate the damage by possible future tsunamis in the area. The damage assessment showed that ∼ 50 % of the structures in the low-lying area of Coquimbo have a high probability of damage in the case of a tsunami generated off the coast of the study area if the city is rebuilt with the same types of structures.

Effects of earthquake spatial slip correlation on variability of tsunami potential energy and intensities

“…To illustrate the consequences of slip correlation length has on the tsunami risk of coastal infrastructure, we use the tsunami fragility curve (Fig. 3c) developed by Aránguiz et al 60 . This total damage fragility curve was developed using post-tsunami survey data collected after the 2015 M w 8.4 Illapel earthquake, with no distinction of structural typology (e.g.…”

Probabilistic depth–damage curves for assessment of flood-induced building losses

“…For example, in seismic damage assessment, fragility curves are defined as the probability of reaching or exceeding a specific damage state under earthquake excitation (Silva et al 2014;Nazri 2018;Moya et al 2018). Likewise, when assessing damage to buildings and infrastructure from other hazards, such as dam breaks (Di Mauro 2014), tsunami (Aránguiz et al 2018), fire (Vaidogas and Juocevicius 2008), the resilience of electricity networks (Dunn et al 2017), fragility curves are commonly used to express the inherent variability in the damage assessment process.…”

Storm Surge Risk Assessment for Non-Life Insurance

“…Regarding the relationship between tsunami inundation depth and its damage, as a representative of the tsunami damage caused by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the fragility curves expressing the probability of occurrence for each degree of damage have been published (eg Suppasri et al [27], Aránguiz et al [28]). These fragility curves are functions that calculate the occurrence probability P i of each damage level i (minor, moderate, major, complete) using the inundation depth η as an explanatory variable as shown in the following equation (Eq.…”