Design and development of an Earthquake Disaster Simulator

This paper presents an online Earthquake Disaster Simulator (EDS) designed and developed based on active database technology. This web-based tool allows users to inject the epicenter data of an earthquake with parameters such as magnitude and quake duration in order to get a list of the areas affected based on the distance from the epicenter, and then estimate damages caused by the quake event, including both structural destruction and human death and injuries. An earthquake damage evaluation model is established that considers major factors of both the quake itself and the impacted geographical area. The tool also supports the damage assessment caused by aftershocks in which the degradation of structure's resistance to earthquake is factored in.