Bangkok
Thailand

9th international course on earthquake vulnerability reduction

Organizer(s) Asian Disaster Preparedness Center
Date
-

ESSENTIAL INSIGHTS:

Earthquake vulnerability is rapidly increasing worldwide, especially in developing countries. The rapid urbanization, lack of proper planning, constraint of resources to response, absence of vulnerability reduction measures, poor enforcement of existing measures, and most importantly lack of awareness of the community are the main reasons for increasing this vulnerability. The need to combat the resultant colossal destruction of earthquake has been at the forefront concern of vulnerable nations.

An earthquake is a natural event and its risk cannot be completely eliminated. However, the destruction of earthquake can be minimized largely by comprehensive earthquake preparedness and mitigation strategies. The earthquakes in Haiti and Chile provide a good comparative example. Given the fact that both countries sit atop of large active faults, in the first quarter of 2010, Haiti faced a major earthquake of 7.0 magnitude which resulted to about 230,000 deaths, while Chile which was hit with even more severe quake of 8.8 magnitude had only 486 deaths. This incomparable difference between the two countries’ causalities comes from the implementation of comprehensive earthquake preparedness and mitigation strategies.

The Earthquake Vulnerability Reduction Course (EVRC) has been designed to achieve the goal of supporting the creation of earthquake resilient society. With rich experiences in providing similar training courses on natural disaster risk reduction at international level, ADPC provides a model training experience in this course by integrating study materials, audio visual tools, and interactive learning strategies, while bringing together earthquake preparedness and mitigation experience from severely affected countries around the world.

KEY ISSUES:

Relationship between rapid unstable development and earthquake vulnerability
Hands-on practices on diagnostic tools and techniques for earthquake hazard, vulnerability and risk assessment
Effective strategies for earthquake vulnerability reduction and resistance
Multi-sectoral partnership for implementing comprehensive earthquake vulnerability reduction strategies
Capacity building on earthquake preparedness & response functions, and planning &recovery for sustainable development

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

By completing the course, the EVRC participants will learn how to

Develop organized approaches for understanding earthquake riskand its impacts
Measure the extent of earthquake vulnerability, and assess the capacity to response
Formulate and apply appropriate strategies for comprehensive earthquake vulnerability and risk reduction
Prepare for earthquake emergencies for efficient earthquake vulnerability reduction
Integrate earthquake risk management strategies with recovery and rehabilitation plans and programs

COURSE MODULE:

EVRC offers a comprehensive approach to the development of earthquake vulnerability and risk reduction strategies, which enables an outlook of earthquake situation, and addresses required measures for preparedness and planning to response. The course brings out theoretical knowledge, state-of-art practices, as well as successes and failures of global earthquake risk management experience. The course is divided into four modules with key topics as following:

Module 1: Principles of Earthquake Risk Reduction

Linkages between urbanization and earthquake risk at national, regional and global level
Earthquake and collateral hazards
Basic concepts and operational terminologies in earthquake risk reduction
Understanding the disaster risk management process

Module 2: Tools and Techniques of Earthquake Risk Assessment

Geological mechanism of earthquake
Process of earthquake hazard assessment and micro-zoning
Assessment of earthquake vulnerability with respect to building and lifelines
Understanding the social and economic vulnerability to earthquake
Tools for rapid earthquake risk assessment
Earthquake damage assessment and loss estimation using HAZUS

Module 3: Earthquake Vulnerability and Risk Reduction Strategies

Concepts of earthquake risk reduction
Approaches for non-structural earthquake risk mitigation
Economics of earthquake vulnerability reduction
Institutional setup/policy framework for earthquake vulnerability reduction

Module 4: Planning for Earthquake Risk Reduction

Damage and need assessment during earthquake disaster event
Search and rescue operations and developing response mechanism
Incident command system
Mass casualty management
Contingency planning for earthquake risk management
City level action planning for earthquake safety
Planning for seismic safety at community and household level
Earthquake vulnerability reduction planning and project implementation
Capacity building for empowering various stakeholders
Planning for reconstruction and recovery
Resource management and response planning

COURSE FACULTY

EVRC will be facilitated by internationally experienced practitioners and experts from ADPC and other partner organizations.

COURSE POLICIES

Language
All teaching and reference materials are in English.Participants must be fully conversant in English.

Explore further

Hazards Earthquake
Country and region Thailand Asia
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