Lessons learnt from communication for disaster preparedness : a study on six survivors from the great East Japan earthquake and tsunami 2011

Communication is a primary challenge in response to natural and man-made disasters. The purpose of this study is to determine the forms of communications that played a critical role in disaster preparedness during the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami (Tohoku earthquake). The study used a case study research method and included six informants following the purposive sampling technique. Data was collected through unstructured in-depth interviews. The findings suggest that communicationin all forms played a vital role in disaster preparedness. In the survivor’s view, however, the impact of broadcast media in establishing situational awareness was limited. Local disaster management efforts, such as, “on call,” or emergency measures, such as, personnel and trucks with communication systems, mobile phone alarms, and sirens were viewed by survivors as useful in transmitting unambiguous, specific messages in a demanding tsunami context. In particular, the study demonstrates that residents’ trust in risk/disaster related messages and mediums play vitalroles in subsequent behaviour/response to natural disasters

Computing seismic vulnerability of residential buildings: A case study of Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia

Increased development and urbanization of a city may cause higher risk from seismic events, even in areas of moderate seismicity. This study takes the case of the City of Jeddah, which is expanding rapidly in a number of buildings and population. The study addresses the rapid evaluation of residential buildings using the Rapid Evaluation Method (REM) to assess building stock to determine hazard and computing vulnerability, with the scoring method from FEMA 155. Two districts were selected for investigation based on cluster analysis applied to population and building data from the municipal office. One district is a modern developing urbanized area; the other is a more traditional area. This selection offers the possibility of comparing the vulnerability of buildings built according to different seismic codes and to make assumptions about the rest of the city based on typical structures of districts. The basic structural score was determined considering the building structure and moderate seismicity of the region using score modifiers. The results show the different levels of vulnerability and areas where intervention is needed. The method can be applied for further analysis of the city