IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/nathaz/v86y2017i1d10.1007_s11069-016-2677-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

An empirical method to estimate fatalities caused by earthquakes: the case of the Ahar–Varzaghan earthquakes (Iran)

Author

Listed:
  • M. Bastami

    (International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES))

  • M. R. Soghrat

    (International Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Seismology (IIEES))

Abstract

The dual Ahar–Varzaghan earthquakes occurred on August 11, 2012, at 16:53 (Iran standard time) in East Azerbaijan province of Iran. The two quakes measured 6.3 and 6.4 on the moment magnitude scale, with the second quake occurring 11 min after the first. Local reports estimated at least 306 deaths, although official reports stated 229, with more than 3000 injured. Most casualties occurred in rural and mountainous areas. The fatalities from the Ahar–Varzaghan earthquakes have been analyzed and a model proposed for estimation of fatalities. The model correlates the fatality count and intensity measures or distance parameters. The peak ground acceleration (PGA) in the village was selected as the intensity measure; thus, the recorded or predicted PGA in the locations suffering fatalities was required. Available ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) were first used. Because the GMPEs did not fit the recorded data, a simple GMPE was developed using the equation best fitted to the recorded data. The correlations between the number of fatalities and the PGA or distance from epicenter to village were assessed by gender. The results show that the number of fatalities has a stronger relationship with PGA than distance.

Suggested Citation

  • M. Bastami & M. R. Soghrat, 2017. "An empirical method to estimate fatalities caused by earthquakes: the case of the Ahar–Varzaghan earthquakes (Iran)," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 86(1), pages 125-149, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:86:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-016-2677-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2677-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11069-016-2677-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11069-016-2677-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erfan Firuzi & Kambod Amini Hosseini & Anooshiravan Ansari & Yasamin O. Izadkhah & Mina Rashidabadi & Mohammad Hosseini, 2020. "An empirical model for fatality estimation of earthquakes in Iran," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 103(1), pages 231-250, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:nathaz:v:86:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11069-016-2677-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.