BUILDING DAMAGE SURVEY OF THE 2008 M8.0 WENCHUAN EARTHQUAKE AND ITS APPLICATION TO RISK MODELING

摘要

The May 12, 2008, M8.0 Great Wenchuan earthquake caused more than 69,000 fatalities, and approximately 18,000 individuals are still missing. The quake ruptured more than 200km of the Longmenshan fault and affected more than 440,000 square kilometers. It damaged more than 24 million buildings and destroyed over 7 million houses. AIR Worldwide, a US based risk modeling company, dispatched a survey team to the disaster area to conduct a damage survey. The survey team travelled over 1,500km and amassed a database containing about 1,400 building damage assessments in five days. Assessments were based on direct observations by the survey team and interviews with local engineers and residents. Each assessment includes a record of the building's construction class, number of stories, occupancy, year built, damage ratio, latitude, and longitude. These assessments have been used to evaluate AIR's earlier real-time damage estimates, and comparison with model output confirms the superior performance of AIR's China earthquake model.