3.3 Effectiveness of strategies in building communities’ resilience to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

Question 1

How can community resilience be strengthened?

Answer 1

• Strategies in building community resilience to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are impt for communities living in hazard-prone
  zones.
• Involve developing the ability of communities living in hazard-prone zones to resist, adapt, and recover from impacts of disasters in a timely and efficient manner.
• Strategies that build community resilience involve: 1. Reducing exposure through land use planning.
  2. Reducing vulnerability through hazard-resistant building designs, and developing monitoring and warning systems.
  3. Increasing preparedness for disaster response and recovery.

Question 2

Reducing exposure through land-use planning

Answer 2

• Aims to reduce the community’s exposure to tectonic hazards by controlling and minimising development in high-risk areas.
• This decreases potential loss of lives and damage to properties.
• Using hazard maps, strict guidelines to control development are implemented.
• Hazard maps identify areas at risk and uses data on past earthquake events to:
  1. Suggest levels of risk based on the likelihood of the disaster occurring.
  2. Indicate the likely extent of disasters.
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  Example:
• After the 1933 tsunami in Japan, land use planning was implemented. Residential land use on coastal areas, such as the Touni-hongo village, were shifted to higher ground.
• When the tsunami caused by the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake (Mw 9.0) struck, the houses on higher ground were not destroyed.

Question 3

Reducing vulnerability through hazard-resistant building design

Answer 3

• Earthquake-resistant building designs that can withstand ground shaking include:
  1. Using shock absorbers or dampers in buildings to absorb vibrations.
  2. Reinforcing buildings using diagonal cross braces to retain building shape during earthquake events.
• These prevent buildings from swaying too much, reducing the vulnerability of buildings to collapse.
• People are less likely to get trapped in collapsed buildings, reducing loss of lives.
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  Example:
• Taipei 101 is a skyscraper built in an earthquake-prone zone.
• It has a weighted damper near the top of the building to balance out ground shaking from earthquakes. This reduces the sway of the building during an earthquake and therefore the threat of the building collapsing.

Question 4

Reducing vulnerability through monitoring and warning systems

Answer 4

• Monitoring and warning systems are a set of devices used to detect seismic waves and ground deformation.
• Help make predictions and send warnings about potential hazards.
• Enable people to evacuate to a safer place, reducing their susceptibility to tectonic hazards.
• For instance, Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems use a network of sensors and monitors.
• Seismic waves are detected during an earthquake.
• Alerts are sent to smart devices to inform people of when the seismic waves might reach them.
• Provide advance warning to people.
• Critical for saving lives as it gives time for authorities and people to respond and evacuate quickly.
• Earthquake sensors identify risk areas, allowing aid to be directed where most needed.
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  Example:
• During the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake (Mw 9.0), monitoring and warning systems detected strong tremors, and a signal was sent out to stop the bullet trains.
• This saved the lives of thousands of passengers.

Question 5

Increasing preparedness from response & recovery

Answer 5

• Being prepared means knowing what to do in the event of a tectonic hazard so that the community can avoid the dangers associated with the hazards.
• Strategies to increase preparedness include:
  1. Raising public awareness of hazards through education
  2. First-aid training
  3. Conducting evacuation drills
• Increasing preparedness also includes developing plans to ensure that people are able to get back to their lives as soon as possible.
• Ex: plans for makeshift shelters, and provision of medical care, food and water.

Question 6

Raising public awareness of hazards through education

Answer 6

• Provides people with the knowledge of hazards, and how to respond to them.
• For instance, taking temporary shelter from volcanic ash during an eruption, and sealing doors and windows.

Question 7

First-aid training

Answer 7

• Enables people to administer basic medical care to the injured and keep them mobile so that they can evacuate if needed.

Question 8

Conducting evacuation drills

Answer 8

• Enables people to be familiar with evacuation procedures and routes, reducing likelihood of them being trapped in collapsed buildings.
• For volcanic eruptions, the drills would familiarise them to avoid areas downwind of the volcano to avoid volcanic ash.
• For tsunamis, the drills would familiarise people with the designated tsunami inundation zones and the marked evacuation routes, so they can avoid the tsunami waves.
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  Example:
• During the 2011 Tohoku, Japan earthquake (Mw
  9.0), nearly all of the 3,000 students of Kamaishi city survived the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
• Schools in Kamaishi city have disaster prevention education programmes, including evacuation drills.
• Hence, they were able to respond quickly and evacuate to higher ground, away from the tsunami.

Question 9

Challenges in building community resilience

Answer 9

Challenges arises due to:
1. Extent of the community’s resources.
2. The capability of the community to organise itself for disasters.

Question 10

Extent of community’s resources

Answer 10

• lack of resources, including technological and financial resources, may cause challenges in building community resilience.
• It may influence the ability of the community to reduce vulnerability and exposure to tectonic hazards, and to recover from the impacts of disasters.
• Developing countries often lack the resources to build community resilience.
• The governments of developing countries may choose to prioritise economic development instead
  of preparing for and dealing with tectonic disasters.
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  Example:
• Bangladesh, a developing country, lies along a plate boundary.
• As about 30% of Bangladeshis live below the poverty line, much of the country’s resources are devoted to economic development.
• It has been found that 21% of buildings in the capital, Dhaka, are easily damaged and unreinforced. 77% are reinforced but have not been designed to resist earthquakes.
• This makes Dhaka very vulnerable to the impacts of earthquakes.

Question 11

The capability of the community to organise itself for disasters

Answer 11

• A lack of capability of the community to organise itself may cause challenges in building community resilience.
• It may limit the community’s ability to respond and recover from tectonic disasters.
• The capability of the community to organise itself may be limited by:
  1. Lack of efforts to educate and train the community to respond and recover from tectonic disasters.
  2. Political instability, such as civil unrest.
  3. Corruption, which may lead to loss of funding meant to build community preparedness.
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  Example:
• The 2010 earthquake in Haiti (Mw 7.0) resulted in more than 220,000 deaths.
• The community in Haiti was not able to organise itself for disasters as there were no measures put in place to educate Haitians on what to do during a disaster.
• It had no network of community healthcare workers, which limited the medical and emergency response.
• Poor law enforcement led to looting becoming prevalent as the need to survive became urgent.
• There was chaos and unrest as survivors found it hard to take care of themselves and recover from the disaster.