Preventive planning model for rescue priority management in seismic emergency

Abstract

This study stems from the detection analysis of damaged buildings in Nocera Umbra (Central Italy), which has been affected by the earthquake sequence during 1997-1998, causing serious damages to material goods and human casualties. This natural disaster highlighted the need to achieve a strategic planning during the emergency phase based not only on effective actions but also on the effcient management of rescue and relief operations. The application of Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) has led to the seismic risk assessment for estimating the potential level of the expected damage, on heritage buildings and human lives. Data and information have been gathered during the surveys carried out after the major seismic event. A deep analysis has highlighted the existence of a correlation ratio between the critical structural features and the propensity of buildings to collapse. Considering either the exposed population, this information represents the crucial element for a relief management plan. All risk indicators associated to each damage scenario have allowed to assign a scale of priorities at every relief operations for an effective risk mitigation based on damage level and expected casualties. The ex-post emergency organization would be able to make more effcient both allocation and management of resources, equipment and technical teams during rescue activities. This is strongly connected to the ex-ante priority planning of the operations related to magnitude and distribution of expected collapses and casualties thank to the simulation performed to the potential risk scenarios.