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- Permanent Link:
- http://dpanther.fiu.edu/dpService/dpPurlService/purl/FI13042103/00001
Notes
- Summary:
- This article focuses on essential principles involved in selecting emergency shelter sites in order to mitigate the impact of disasters on vulnerable communities, particularly areas facing seismic hazards. It’s analysis focuses on the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in Sichuan, China. In May 2008, the magnitude 8.0 Wenchuan Earthquake led to the deaths of nearly 70,000 people, injury of 370,000, and homelessness of 45 million. The lack of an appropriate emergency shelter strategy is cited as a central factor in the magnitude of the devastation. Not only does the affected mountainous region contain many major urban centers distributed along active fault zones, leaving large numbers of people exposed to seismic-induced geological hazards, many emergency shelters are situated in the most hazardous locations. In September of 2008, mobile homes utilized as emergency shelters were severely damaged by mud and rock flows in the aftermath of heavy rains. Even more problematic, public facilities such as schools and hospitals that often serve as emergency shelters in many industrialized societies, were disproportionately destroyed as a result of poor construction and inadequate building codes. The authors use remote sensing data and field research to establish criteria for ensuring that emergency shelters are located in safe locations. The final section presents a case study of an emergency shelter site in Leigu County in comparison to a non-suitable shelter site established in Liulin. The first essential principle to effective emergency shelter site selection in this case is to keep them as far away from active fault zones as possible, with distances determined based on the specific characteristics of the fault. This also means avoiding steep slopes, and other areas vulnerable to geological risks such as earthquake-triggered landslides, debris flows, and rock falls. The authors also call on planners to take into consideration the accessibility of mountainous regions in developing an emergency shelter strategy. Often the transportation infrastructure of mountainous regions are rather underdeveloped, so the document suggests that a strategy that privileges small decentralized shelters would be more effective than one focused on larger shelters set up in a centralized manner. And, most importantly, the authors call for developing multi-dimensional disaster-mitigation strategies that address natural hazards, human activities, and urban expansion comprehensively. Part of this means integrating the selection of emergency shelter sites into the disaster prevention and mitigation process. ( English )
- Subject:
- Transitional Shelters ( English )
- Citation/Reference:
- Qiang, L., Ruan, X., Shi, P. (2011). Selection of emergency shelter sites for seismic disasters in mountainous regions: lessons from the 2008 Wenchuan Ms 8.0 earthquake, China. Journal of Asian Earth Sciences 40: 926-934.
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