research study about earthquake

Earthquakes

Earthquakes happen every day, but most are so small that humans cannot feel them. Nonetheless, over the past 50 years, earthquakes and the tsunamis and landslides that resulted from them have contributed to millions of injuries and deaths and more than $1 trillion in damage. For nearly a century, Caltech scientists and engineers have led the world in earthquake measurement and monitoring. By informing preparedness and response initiatives, and pioneering innovations in early warning, their work aims to reduce the human toll of these natural disasters. Learn more about earthquake science and engineering.

Earthquakes Terms to Know >

What Happens During an Earthquake?

What causes earthquakes, and what types of earthquakes are there? To answer these questions, it is first helpful to have an understanding of Earth's composition.

How Are Earthquakes Measured?

Two different viewpoints underpin the most important measurements related to earthquakes: magnitude and intensity . To scientists, an earthquake is an event inside the earth. To the rest of us, it is an extraordinary movement of the ground. Magnitude measures the former, while intensity measures the latter.

Can Seismologists Predict Earthquakes?

It is not currently possible to predict exactly when and where an earthquake will occur, nor how large it will be. However, seismologists can estimate where earthquakes may be likely to strike by calculating probabilities and forecasts .

How Could a Major Earthquake Affect Urban Infrastructure?

Megacities are especially vulnerable to earthquakes. Learn about cascading effects and how modeling can minimize the risk of a natural hazard turning into a disaster.

What Happens to Buildings During Earthquakes?

Find out how earthquakes affect houses, high-rises, and other buildings, and which are considered the safest and most dangerous places to be.

How Do We Know What Makes a Building Earthquake Resistant?

Learn how the Community Seismic Network gathers data about how the ground and buildings move to inform safer construction and better damage detection.

EARTHQUAKE PREPAREDNESS

How Do Earthquake Early Warning Systems Work?

Earthquake early warning systems don't predict earthquakes. Instead, they detect ground motion as soon as an earthquake begins and quickly send alerts that a tremor is on its way, giving people crucial seconds to prepare.

What Should You Do Before, During, and After an Earthquake?

It is impossible to predict when and where an earthquake will strike. Nonetheless, you can take steps before, during, and after a quake to help yourself stay safe and recover quickly.

Ask a Caltech Expert

Lucy Jones on Earthquakes

Find answers to common questions about earthquakes from seismologist and science communicator Lucy Jones, a visiting associate in geophysics at Caltech and the founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society.

Terms to Know

A smaller earthquake that occurs after the largest event of an earthquake sequence (mainshock). Aftershocks can occur for days, months, or years after the mainshock, but reduce in frequency over time.

Dip-slip fault

Fault where the two sides have moved vertically relative to each other.

Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems

When significant earthquakes begin, these systems distribute electronic alerts to warn people before shaking reaches them, providing potentially crucial seconds of preparation time.

Earthquake forecast

The probability of an earthquake of a certain size happening within a certain period of time. This is different from an earthquake "prediction," which requires a specific date and time, location, and magnitude. It is not yet possible to predict earthquakes.

The point on the surface of the earth directly above where an earthquake rupture begins.

A fracture in earth's crust. On either side of a fault, blocks of crust have moved relative to each other. Earthquakes occur when rock on one side of the fault suddenly slips.

An earthquake that comes before a larger earthquake in the same sequence. Foreshocks do not show any identifying characteristics when they occur; they are identified when a larger event follows.

For a given earthquake, the location within Earth's interior where the earthquake rupture starts

The severity of an earthquake in terms of what people and structures experience. A single earthquake has different intensities in different places.

The overall size of an earthquake, based on measurements of seismic waves recorded by seismographs. One earthquake may be felt at various intensities in different places, but it has only one magnitude.

The largest earthquake in a sequence. Mainshocks are sometimes preceded by foreshocks, and always followed by aftershocks.

Moment magnitude scale

A measure of earthquake magnitude based on the area of fault that moved, the amount that it moved, and the friction between the rocks. Developed by Caltech's Hiroo Kanamori and seismologist Thomas C. Hanks, this is the only method of measuring magnitude that is uniformly applicable to all sizes of earthquakes, but it is more difficult to compute than other scales.

Richter scale

A measure of earthquake magnitude based on seismic wave amplitudes that was introduced in 1935 by Caltech seismologists Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg. The term is used colloquially to reference magnitude of any kind despite the fact that other magnitude scales, such as moment magnitude, are more commonly used today.

The squiggle-shaped record of ground motion collected by a seismometer.

Seismometer

A precise motion sensor used to record vibrations in the ground, such as seismic waves from earthquakes. Also known as a seismograph.

Strike-slip fault

Fault where the two sides have moved horizontally relative to each other.

Tectonic plates

Large, rigid pieces of the earth's crust that move relative to one another. Places where tectonic plates meet experience more earthquakes.

Thrust fault

Faults that occur in areas of Earth's crust where one slab of rock compresses against another, sliding up and over it during an earthquake. Thrust faults have been the sites of some of the world's largest quakes.

A series of earthquakes with no distinct mainshock occurring in a single area in a short period of time.

Dive Deeper

More Caltech Earthquake Research Coverage

National Earthquake Resilience: Research, Implementation, and Outreach (2011)

Chapter: 1 introduction.

1 Introduction

When a strong earthquake hits an urban area, structures collapse, people are injured or killed, infrastructure is disrupted, and business interruption begins. The immediate impacts caused by an earthquake can be devastating to a community, challenging it to launch rescue efforts, restore essential services, and initiate the process of recovery. The ability of a community to recover from such a disaster reflects its resilience, and it is the many factors that contribute to earthquake resilience that are the focus of this report. Specifically, we provide a roadmap for building community resilience within the context of the Strategic Plan of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP), a program first authorized by Congress in 1977 to coordinate the efforts of four federal agencies—National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), National Science Foundation (NSF), and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The three most recent earthquake disasters in the United States all occurred in California—in 1994 near Los Angeles at Northridge, in 1989 near San Francisco centered on Loma Prieta, and in 1971 near Los Angeles at San Fernando. In each earthquake, large buildings and major highways were heavily damaged or collapsed and the economic activity in the afflicted area was severely disrupted. Remarkably, despite the severity of damage, deaths numbered fewer than a hundred for each event. Moreover, in a matter of days or weeks, these communities had restored many essential services or worked around major problems, completed rescue efforts, and economic activity—although impaired—had begun to recover. It could be argued that these communities were, in fact, quite resilient. But

it should be emphasized that each of these earthquakes was only moderate to strong in size, less than magnitude-7, and that the impacted areas were limited in size. How well would these communities cope with a magnitude-8 earthquake? What lessons can be drawn from the resilience demonstrated for a moderate earthquake in preparing for a great one?

Perhaps experience in dealing with hurricane disasters would be instructive in this regard. In a typical year, a few destructive hurricanes make landfall in the United States. Most of them cause moderate structural damage, some flooding, limited disruption of services—usually loss of power—and within a few days, activity returns to near normal. However, when Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans region in 2005 and caused massive flooding and long-term evacuation of much of the population, the response capabilities were stretched beyond their limits. Few observers would argue that New Orleans, at least in the short term, was a resilient community in the face of that event.

Would an earthquake on the scale of the 1906 event in northern California or the 1857 event in southern California lead to a similar catastrophe? It is likely that an earthquake on the scale of these events in California would indeed lead to a catastrophe similar to hurricane Katrina, but of a significantly different nature. Flooding, of course, would not be the main hazard, but substantial casualties, collapse of structures, fires, and economic disruption could be of great consequence. Similarly, what would happen if there were to be a repeat of the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812, in view of the vulnerability of the many bridges and chemical facilities in the region and the substantial barge traffic on the Mississippi River? Or, consider the impact if an earthquake like the 1886 Charleston tremor struck in other areas in the central or eastern United States, where earthquake-prone, unreinforced masonry structures abound and earthquake preparedness is not a prime concern? The resilience of communities and regions, and the steps—or roadmap—that could be taken to ensure that areas at risk become earthquake resilient, are the subject of this report.

EARTHQUAKE RISK AND HAZARD

Earthquakes proceed as cascades, in which the primary effects of faulting and ground shaking induce secondary effects such as landslides, liquefaction, and tsunami, which in turn set off destructive processes within the built environment such as fires and dam failures (NRC, 2003). The socioeconomic effects of large earthquakes can reverberate for decades.

The seismic hazard for a specified site is a probabilistic forecast of how intense the earthquake effects will be at that site. In contrast, seismic risk is a probabilistic forecast of the damage to society that will be caused by earthquakes, usually measured in terms of casualties and economic losses in a

specified area integrated over the post-earthquake period. Risk depends on the hazard, but it is compounded by a community’s exposure —its population and the extent and density of its built environment—as well as the fragility of its built environment, population, and socioeconomic systems to seismic hazards. Exposure and fragility contribute to vulnerability . Risk is lowered by resiliency , the measure of how efficiently and how quickly a community can recover from earthquake damage.

Risk analysis seeks to quantify the risk equation in a framework that allows the impact of political policies and economic investments to be evaluated, to inform the decision-making processes that contribute to risk reduction. Risk quantification is a difficult problem, because it requires detailed knowledge of the natural and the built environments, as well as an understanding of both earthquake and human behaviors. Moreover, national risk is a dynamic concept because of the exponential rise in the urban exposure to seismic hazards (EERI, 2003b)—calculating risk involves predictions of highly uncertain demographic trends.

Estimating Losses from Earthquakes

The synoptic earthquake risk studies needed for policy formulation are the responsibility of NEHRP. These studies can take the form of deterministic or scenario studies where the effects of a single earthquake are modeled, or probabilistic studies that weight the effects from a number of different earthquake scenarios by the annual likelihood of their occurrence. The consequences are measured in terms of dollars of damage, fatalities, injuries, tons of debris generated, ecological damage, etc. The exposure period may be defined as the design lifetime of a building or some other period of interest (e.g., 50 years). Typically, seismic risk estimates are presented in terms of an exceedance probability (EP) curve (Kunreuther et al., 2004), which shows the probability that specific parameters will equal or exceed specified values ( Figure 1.1 ). On this figure, a loss estimate calculated for a specific scenario earthquake is represented by a horizontal slice through the EP curve, while estimates of annualized losses from earthquakes are portrayed by the area under the EP curve.

The 2008 Great California ShakeOut exercise in southern California is an example of a scenario study that describes what would happen during and after a magnitude-7.8 earthquake on the southernmost 300 km of the San Andreas Fault ( Figure 1.2 ), a plausible event on the fault that is most likely to produce a major earthquake. Analysis of the 2008 ShakeOut scenario, which involved more than 5,000 emergency responders and the participation of more than 5.5 million citizens, indicated that the scenario earthquake would have resulted in an estimated 1,800 fatalities, $113 billion in damages to buildings and lifelines, and nearly $70 billion in busi-

FIGURE 1.1 Sample mean EP curve, showing that for a specified event the probability of insured losses exceeding L i is given by p i . SOURCE: Kunreuther et al. (2004).

ness interruption (Jones et al., 2008; Rose et al., in press). The broad areal extent and long duration of water service outages was the main contributor to business interruption losses. Moreover, the scenario is essentially a compound event like Hurricane Katrina, with the projected urban fires caused by gas main breaks and other types of induced accidents projected to cause $40 billion of the property damage and more than $22 billion of the business interruption. Devastating fires occurred in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco, 1923 Tokyo, and 1995 Kobe earthquakes.

Loss estimates have been published for a range of earthquake scenarios based on historic events—e.g., the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (Kircher et al., 2006); the 1811/1812 New Madrid earthquakes (Elnashai et al., 2009); and the magnitude-9 Cascadia subduction earthquake of 1700 (CREW, 2005)—or inferred from geologic data that show the magnitudes and locations of prehistoric fault ruptures (e.g., the Puente Hills blind thrust that runs beneath central Los Angeles; Field et al., 2005). In all cases, the results from such estimates are staggering, with economic losses that run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

FEMA’s latest estimate of Annualized Earthquake Loss (AEL) for the nation (FEMA, 2008) is an example of a probabilistic study—an estimate of national earthquake risk that used HAZUS-MH software ( Box 1.1 ) together with input from Census 2000 data and the 2002 USGS National Seismic Hazard Map. The current AEL estimate of $5.3 billion (2005$)

FIGURE 1.2 A “ShakeMap” representing the shaking produced by the scenario earthquake on which the Great California ShakeOut was based. The colors represent the Modified Mercalli Intensity, with warmer colors representing areas of greater damage. SOURCE: USGS. Available at earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/sc/shake/ShakeOut2_full_se/ .

reflects building-related direct economic losses including damage to buildings and their contents, commercial inventories, as well as damaged building-related income losses (e.g., wage losses, relocation costs, rental income losses, etc.), but does not include indirect economic losses or losses to lifeline systems. For comparison, the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) (2003b) extrapolated the FEMA (2001) estimate of AEL ($4.4 billion) for residential and commercial building-related direct economic losses by a factor of 2.5 to include indirect economic losses, the social costs of death and injury, as well as direct and indirect losses to the

BOX 1.1 HAZUS ® —Risk Metrics for NEHRP

The ability to monitor and compare seismic risk across states and regions is critical to the management of NEHRP. At the state and local level, an understanding of seismic risk is important for planning and for evaluating costs and benefits associated with building codes, as well as a variety of other prevention measures. HAZUS is Geographic Information System (GIS) software for earthquake loss estimation that was developed by FEMA in cooperation with the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). HAZUS-MH (Hazards U.S.-Multi-Hazard) was released in 2003 to include wind and flood hazards in addition to the earthquake hazards that were the subject of the 1997 and 1999 HAZUS releases. Successive HAZUS maintenance releases (MR) have been made available by FEMA since the initial HAZUS-MH MR-1 release; the latest version, HAZUS-MH MR-5, was released in December 2010.

Annualized Earthquake Loss (AEL) is the estimated long-term average of earthquake losses in any given year for a specific location. Studies by FEMA based on the 1990 and 2000 censuses provide two “snapshots” of seismic risk in the United States (FEMA, 2001, 2008). These studies, together with an earlier analysis of the 1970 census by Petak and Atkisson (1982), show that the estimated national AEL increased from $781 million (1970$) to $4.7 billion (2000$)—or by about 40 percent—over four decades ( Figure 1.3 ). All three studies used building-related direct economic losses and included structural and nonstructural replacement costs, contents damage, business inventory losses, and direct business interruption losses.

industrial, manufacturing, transportation, and utility sectors to arrive at an annual average financial loss in excess of $10 billion.

Although the need to address earthquake risk is now accepted in many communities, the ability to identify and act on specific hazard and risk issues can be improved by reducing the uncertainties in the risk equation. Large ranges in loss estimates generally stem from two types of uncertainty—the natural variability assigned to earthquake processes ( aleatory uncertainty ), as well as a lack of knowledge of the true hazards and risks involved ( epistemic uncertainty ). Uncertainties are associated with the methodologies, the assumptions, and databases used to estimate the ground motions and building inventories, the modeling of building responses, and the correlation of expected economic and social losses to the estimated physical damages.

FIGURE 1.3 Growth of seismic risk in the United States. Annualized Earthquake Loss (AEL) estimates are shown for the census year on which the estimate is based, in census year dollars. Estimate for 1970 census from Petak and Atkinson (1982); HAZUS-99 estimate for 1990 census from FEMA (2001); and HAZUS-MH estimate for 2000 census from FEMA (2008). Consumer Price Index (CPI) dollar adjustments based on CPI inflation calculator (see data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl ).

Comparison of published risk estimates reveals the sensitivity of such estimates to varying inputs, such as soil types and ground motion attenuation models, or building stock inventories and damage calculations. The basic earth science and geotechnical research and data that the NEHRP agencies provide to communities help to reduce these types of epistemic uncertainty, whereas an understanding of the intrinsic aleatory uncertainty is achieved through scientific research into the processes that cause earthquakes. Accurate loss estimation models increase public confidence in making seismic risk management decisions. Until the uncertainties surrounding the EP curve in Figure 1.1 are reduced, there will be either unnecessary or insufficient emergency response planning and mitigation because the experts in these areas will be unable to inform decision-makers of the probabilities and potential outcomes with an appropriate degree of

confidence (NRC, 2006a). Information about new and rehabilitated buildings and infrastructure, coupled with improved seismic hazard maps, can allow policy-makers to track incremental reductions in risk and improvements in safety through earthquake mitigation programs (NRC, 2006b).

NEHRP ACCOMPLISHMENTS—THE PAST 30 YEARS

In its 30 years of existence, NEHRP has provided a focused, coordinated effort toward developing a knowledge base for addressing the earthquake threat. The following summary of specific accomplishments from the earth sciences and engineering fields are based on the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan (NIST, 2008):

• Improved understanding of earthquake processes. Basic research and earthquake monitoring have significantly advanced the understanding of the geologic processes that cause earthquakes, the characteristics of earthquake faults, the nature of seismicity, and the propagation of seismic waves. This understanding has been incorporated into seismic hazard assessments, earthquake potential assessments, building codes and design criteria, rapid assessments of earthquake impacts, and scenarios for risk mitigation and response planning.

• Improved earthquake hazard assessment. Improvements in the National Seismic Hazard Maps have been developed through a scientifically defensible and repeatable process that involves peer input and review at regional and national levels by expert and user communities. Once based on six broad zones, they now are based on a grid of seismic hazard assessments at some 150,000 sites throughout the country. The new maps, first developed in 1996, are periodically updated and form the basis for the Design Ground Motion Maps used in the NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings and Other Structures, the foundation for the seismic elements of model building codes.

• Improved earthquake risk assessment. Development of earthquake hazard- and risk-assessment techniques for use throughout the United States has improved awareness of earthquake impacts on communities. NEHRP funds have supported the development and continued refinement of HAZUS-MH. The successful NEHRP-supported integration of earthquake risk-assessment and loss-estimation methodologies with earthquake hazard assessments and notifications has provided significant benefits for both emergency response and community planning. Moreover, major advances in risk assessment and hazard loss estimation beyond what could be included in a software package for general users were developed by the three NSF-supported earthquake engineering centers.

• Improved earthquake safety in design and construction. Earthquake safety in new buildings has been greatly improved through the adoption, in whole or in part, of earthquake-resistant national model building codes by state and local governments in all 50 states. Development of advanced earthquake engineering technologies for use in design and construction has greatly improved the cost-effectiveness of earthquake-resistant design and construction while giving options with predicted decision consequences. These techniques include new methods for reducing the seismic risk associated with nonstructural components, base isolation methods for dissipating seismic energy in buildings, and performance-based design approaches.

• Improved earthquake safety for existing buildings. NEHRP-led research, development of engineering guidelines, and implementation activities associated with existing buildings have led to the first generation of consensus-based national standards for evaluating and rehabilitating existing buildings. This work provided the basis for two American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) standards documents: ASCE 31 (Seismic Evaluation of Existing Buildings) and ASCE 41 (Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings).

• Development of partnerships for public awareness and earthquake mitigation. NEHRP has developed and sustained partnerships with state and local governments, professional groups, and multi-state earthquake consortia to improve public awareness of the earthquake threat and support the development of sound earthquake mitigation policies.

• Improved development and dissemination of earthquake information. There is now a greatly increased body of earthquake-related information available to public- and private-sector officials and the general public. This comes through effective documentation, earthquake response exercises, learning-from-earthquake activities, publications on earthquake safety, training, education, and information on general earthquake phenomena and means to reduce their impact. Millions of earthquake preparedness handbooks have been delivered to at-risk populations, and many of these handbooks have been translated from English into languages most easily understood by large sectors of the population. NEHRP now maintains a website 1 that provides information on the program and communicates regularly with the earthquake professional community through the monthly electronic newsletter, Seismic Waves.

• Improved notification of earthquakes. The USGS National Earthquake Information Center and regional networks, all elements of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), now provide earthquake

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1 See www.nehrp.gov .

alerts describing a magnitude and location within a few minutes after an earthquake. The USGS PAGER system 2 provides estimates of the number of people and the names of cities exposed to shaking, with corresponding levels of impact shown by the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale and estimates of the number of fatalities and economic loss, following significant earthquakes worldwide ( Figure 1.4 ). When coupled with graphic ShakeMaps 3 showing the distribution and severity of ground shaking (e.g., Chapter 3 , Figure 3.2 ), this information is essential for effective emergency response, infrastructure management, and recovery planning.

• Expanded training and education of earthquake professionals. Thousands of graduates of U.S. colleges and universities have benefited from their involvement and experiences with NEHRP-supported research projects and training activities. Those graduates now form the nucleus of America’s earthquake professional community.

• Development of advanced data collection and research facilities. NEHRP took the lead in developing ANSS and the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES). Through these initiatives, NEES now forms a national infrastructure for testing geotechnical, structural, and nonstructural systems, and once completed, ANSS will provide a comprehensive, nationwide system for monitoring seismicity and collecting data on earthquake shaking on the ground and in structures. NEHRP also has participated in the development of the Global Seismographic Network to provide data on seismic events worldwide.

As well as this list of important accomplishments cited in the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan, the following range of NEHRP accomplishments in the social science arena were described in NRC (2006a):

• Development of a comparative research framework. Largely supported by NEHRP, over the past three decades social scientists increasingly have placed the study of earthquakes within a comparative framework that includes other natural, technological, and willful events. This evolving framework calls for the integration of hazards and disaster research within the social sciences and among social science, natural science, and engineering disciplines.

• Documentation of community and regional vulnerability to earthquakes and other natural hazards. Under NEHRP sponsorship, social science knowledge has expanded greatly in terms of data on community and regional exposure and vulnerability to earthquakes and other natural hazards, such that the foundation has been established for devel-

2 See earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/pager/ .

3 See earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/ .

FIGURE 1.4 Sample PAGER output for the strong and damaging February 2011 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. SOURCE: USGS. Available at earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/pager/events/us/b0001igm/index.html .

oping more precise loss estimation models and related decision support tools (e.g., HAZUS). The vulnerabilities are increasingly documented through state-of-the-art geospatial and temporal methods (e.g., GIS, remote sensing, and visual overlays of hazardous areas with demographic information), and the resulting data are equally relevant to pre-, trans-, and post-disaster social science investigations.

• Household and business-sector adoption of self-protective measures. A solid knowledge base has been developed under NEHRP at the household level on vulnerability assessment, risk communication, warning response (e.g., evacuation), and the adoption of other forms of protective action (e.g., emergency food and water supplies, fire extinguishers, procedures and tools to cut off utilities, hazard insurance). Adoption of these and other self-protective measures has been modeled systematically, highlighting the importance of disaster experience and perceptions of personal risk (i.e., beliefs about household vulnerability to and consequences of specific events) and, to a lesser extent, demographic variables (e.g., income, education, home ownership) and social influences (e.g., communications patterns and observations of what other people are doing). Although research on adoption of self-protective measures of businesses is much more limited, recent experience of disaster-related business or lifeline interruptions has been shown to be correlated with greater preparedness activities, at least in the short run. Such preparedness activities are more likely to occur in larger as opposed to smaller commercial enterprises.

• Public-sector adoption of disaster mitigation measures. Most NEHRP-sponsored social science research has focused on the politics of hazard mitigation as they relate to intergovernmental issues in land-use regulations. The highly politicized nature of these regulations has been well documented, particularly when multiple layers of government are involved. Governmental conflicts regarding responsibility for the land-use practices of households and businesses are compounded by the involvement of other stakeholders (e.g., bankers, developers, industry associations, professional associations, other community activists, and emergency management practitioners). The results are complex social networks of power relationships that constrain the adoption of hazard mitigation policies and practices at local and regional levels.

• Hazard insurance issues. NEHRP-sponsored social research has documented many difficulties in developing and maintaining an actuarially sound insurance program for earthquakes and floods—those who are most likely to purchase earthquake and flood insurance are, in fact, those who are most likely to file claims. This problem makes it virtually impossible to sustain an insurance market in the private sector for these hazards. Economists and psychologists have documented in laboratory studies

a number of logical deficiencies in the way people process information related to risks as it relates to insurance decision-making. Market failure in earthquake and flood insurance remains an important social science research and public policy issue.

• Public-sector adoption of disaster emergency and recovery preparedness measures. NEHRP-sponsored social science studies of emergency preparedness have addressed the extent of local support for disaster preparedness, management strategies for improving the effectiveness of community preparedness, the increasing use of computer and communications technologies in disaster planning and training, the structure of community preparedness networks, and the effects of disaster preparedness on both pre-determined (e.g., improved warning response and evacuation behavior) and improvised (e.g., effective ad hoc uses of personnel and resources) responses during actual events. Thus far there has been little social science research on the disaster recovery aspect of preparedness.

• Social impacts of disasters. A solid body of social science research supported by NEHRP has documented the destructive impacts of disasters on residential dwellings and the processes people go through in housing recovery (emergency shelter, temporary sheltering, temporary housing, and permanent housing), as well as analogous impacts on businesses. Documented specifically are the problems faced by low-income households, which tend to be headed disproportionately by females and racial or ethnic minorities. Notably, there has been little social science research under NEHRP on the impacts of disasters on other aspects of the built environment. There is a substantial research literature on the psychological, social, and economic and (to a lesser extent) political impacts of disaster, which suggests that these impacts, while not random within impacted populations, are generally modest and transitory.

• Post-disaster responses by the public and private sectors. Research before and since the establishment of NEHRP in 1977 has contradicted misconceptions that during disasters, panic will be widespread, that large percentages of those who are expected to respond will simply abandon disaster relief roles, that local institutions will break down, that crime and other forms of anti-social behavior will be rampant, and that the mental impairment of victims and first responders will be a major problem. Existing and ongoing research is documenting and modeling the mix of expected and improvised responses by emergency management personnel, the public and private organizations of which they are members, and the multi-organizational networks within which these individual and organizational responses are nested. As a result of this research, a range of decision support tools is now being developed for emergency management practitioners.

• Post-disaster reconstruction and recovery by the public and private sectors. Prior to NEHRP relatively little was known about disas-

ter recovery processes and outcomes at different levels of analysis (e.g., households, neighborhoods, firms, communities, and regions). NEHRP-funded projects have helped to refine general conceptions of disaster recovery, made important contributions in understanding the recovery of households and communities (primarily) and businesses (more recently), and contributed to the development of statistically based community and regional models of post-disaster losses and recovery processes.

• Research on resilience has been a major theme of the NSF-supported earthquake research centers. The Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) sponsored research providing operational definitions of resilience, measuring its cost and effectiveness, and designing policies to implement it at the level of the individual household, business, government, and nongovernment institution. The Mid-American Earthquake Center (MAE) sponsored research on the promotion of earthquake-resilient regions.

ROADMAP CONTEXT—THE EERI REPORT AND NEHRP STRATEGIC PLAN

The 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan calls for an accelerated effort to develop community resilience. The plan defines a vision of “a nation that is earthquake resilient in public safety, economic strength, and national security,” and articulates the NEHRP mission “to develop, disseminate, and promote knowledge, tools, and practices for earthquake risk reduction—through coordinated, multidisciplinary, interagency partnerships among NEHRP agencies and their stakeholders—that improve the Nation’s earthquake resilience in public safety, economic, strength, and national security.” The plan identifies three goals with fourteen objectives (listed below), plus nine strategic priorities (presented in Appendix A ).

Goal A: Improve understanding of earthquake processes and impacts.

Objective 1: Advance understanding of earthquake phenomena and generation processes.

Objective 2: Advance understanding of earthquake effects on the built environment.

Objective 3: Advance understanding of the social, behavioral, and economic factors linked to implementing risk reduction and mitigation strategies in the public and private sectors.

Objective 4: Improve post-earthquake information acquisition and management.

Goal B: Develop cost-effective measures to reduce earthquake impacts on individuals, the built environment, and society-at-large.

Objective 5: Assess earthquake hazards for research and practical application.

Objective 6: Develop advanced loss estimation and risk assessment tools.

Objective 7: Develop tools that improve the seismic performance of buildings and other structures.

Objective 8: Develop tools that improve the seismic performance of critical infrastructure.

Goal C: Improve the earthquake resilience of communities nationwide.

Objective 9: Improve the accuracy, timeliness, and content of earthquake information products.

Objective 10: Develop comprehensive earthquake risk scenarios and risk assessments.

Objective 11: Support development of seismic standards and building codes and advocate their adoption and enforcement.

Objective 12: Promote the implementation of earthquake-resilient measures in professional practice and in private and public policies.

Objective 13: Increase public awareness of earthquake hazards and risks.

Objective 14: Develop the nation’s human resource base in earthquake safety fields.

Although the Strategic Plan does not specify the activities that would be required to reach its goals, in the initial briefing to the committee NIST, the NEHRP lead agency, described the 2003 report by the EERI, Securing Society Against Catastrophic Earthquake Losses, as at least a starting point. The EERI report lists specific activities—and estimates costs—for a range of research programs (presented in Appendix B ) that are in broad accord with the goals laid out in the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan. The committee was asked to review, update, and validate the programs and cost estimates laid out in the EERI report.

COMMITTEE CHARGE AND SCOPE OF THIS STUDY

The National Institute of Standards and Technology—the lead NEHRP agency—commissioned the National Research Council (NRC) to undertake a study to assess the activities, and their costs, that would be required for the nation to achieve earthquake resilience in 20 years ( Box 1.2 ). The charge

BOX 1.2 Statement of Task

A National Research Council committee will develop a roadmap for earthquake hazard and risk reduction in the United States. The committee will frame the road map around the goals and objectives for achieving national earthquake resilience in public safety and economic security stated in the current strategic plan of the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) submitted to Congress in 2008. This roadmap will be based on an analysis of what will be required to realize the strategic plan’s major technical goals for earthquake resilience within 20 years. In particular, the committee will:

• Host a national workshop focused on assessing the basic and applied research, seismic monitoring, knowledge transfer, implementation, education, and outreach activities needed to achieve national earthquake resilience over a twenty-year period.

• Estimate program costs, on an annual basis, that will be required to implement the roadmap.

• Describe the future sustained activities, such as earthquake monitoring (both for research and for warning), education, and public outreach, which should continue following the 20-year period.

to the committee recognized that there would be a requirement for some sustained activities under the NEHRP program after this 20-year period.

To address the charge, the NRC assembled a committee of 12 experts with disciplinary expertise spanning earthquake and structural engineering; seismology, engineering geology, and earth system science; disaster and emergency management; and the social and economic components of resilience and disaster recovery. Committee biographic information is presented in Appendix C .

The committee held four meetings between May and December, 2009, convening twice in Washington, DC; and also in Irvine, CA; and Chicago, IL (see Appendix D ). The major focal point for community input to the committee was a 2-day open workshop held in August 2009, where concurrent breakout sessions interspersed with plenary addresses enabled the committee to gain a thorough understanding of community perspectives regarding program needs and priorities. Additional briefings by NEHRP agency representatives were presented during open sessions at the initial and final committee meetings.

Report Structure

Building on the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan and the EERI report, this report analyses the critical issues affecting resilience, identifies challenges and opportunities in achieving that goal, and recommends specific actions that would comprise a roadmap to community resilience. Because the concept of “resilience” is a fundamental tenet of the roadmap for realizing the major technical goals of the NEHRP Strategic Plan, Chapter 2 presents an analysis of the concept of resilience, a description of the characteristics of a resilient community, resilience metrics, and a description of the benefits to the nation of a resilience-based approach to hazard mitigation. Chapter 3 contains descriptions of the 18 broad, integrated tasks comprising the elements of a roadmap to achieve national earthquake resilience focusing on the specific outcomes that could be achieved in a 20-year timeframe, and the elements realizable within 5 years. These tasks are described in terms of the proposed activity and actions, existing knowledge and current capabilities, enabling requirements, and implementation issues. Costs to implement these 18 tasks are presented in Chapter 4 , in as much detail as possible within the constraint that some components have been the subject of specific, detailed costing exercises whereas others are necessarily broad-brush estimates at this stage. The final chapter briefly summarizes the major elements of the roadmap.

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The United States will certainly be subject to damaging earthquakes in the future. Some of these earthquakes will occur in highly populated and vulnerable areas. Coping with moderate earthquakes is not a reliable indicator of preparedness for a major earthquake in a populated area. The recent, disastrous, magnitude-9 earthquake that struck northern Japan demonstrates the threat that earthquakes pose. Moreover, the cascading nature of impacts-the earthquake causing a tsunami, cutting electrical power supplies, and stopping the pumps needed to cool nuclear reactors-demonstrates the potential complexity of an earthquake disaster. Such compound disasters can strike any earthquake-prone populated area. National Earthquake Resilience presents a roadmap for increasing our national resilience to earthquakes.

The National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) is the multi-agency program mandated by Congress to undertake activities to reduce the effects of future earthquakes in the United States. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-the lead NEHRP agency-commissioned the National Research Council (NRC) to develop a roadmap for earthquake hazard and risk reduction in the United States that would be based on the goals and objectives for achieving national earthquake resilience described in the 2008 NEHRP Strategic Plan. National Earthquake Resilience does this by assessing the activities and costs that would be required for the nation to achieve earthquake resilience in 20 years.

National Earthquake Resilience interprets resilience broadly to incorporate engineering/science (physical), social/economic (behavioral), and institutional (governing) dimensions. Resilience encompasses both pre-disaster preparedness activities and post-disaster response. In combination, these will enhance the robustness of communities in all earthquake-vulnerable regions of our nation so that they can function adequately following damaging earthquakes. While National Earthquake Resilience is written primarily for the NEHRP, it also speaks to a broader audience of policy makers, earth scientists, and emergency managers.

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Earthquake Processes and Effects

The overarching theme of this research is for scientists to discover as much as they can about earthquakes and faulting from field and laboratory observations, and to combine this with geophysical, geological, geochemical, and mathematical (including computational) modeling of earthquake sources and fault zones so as to best improve USGS earthquake hazard assessments.

The breadth and depth of studying earthquake processes in the field, in the lab, and on the computer to inform earthquake hazards.

Tracking Stress Buildup

The constant plate tectonic motions between the Pacific and North American plates guarantees that the crust in the western US is continually building up stress.

Crustal Deformation

Crustal deformation refers to the changing earth’s surface caused by tectonic forces that are accumulated in the crust and then cause earthquakes.

Fault Slip Rates

Earth’s crust typically moves a few millimeters to centimeters per year. In an actively deforming continental region, the crust often behaves like a set of nearly-rigid blocks separated by faults.

Post-Earthquake Motions

After a large earthquake, the crust does not stop moving. The slip that occurs during the aftershocks that follow is called afterslip.

Ground Movements

Measureable permanent ground displacements are produced by shallow earthquakes of magnitude 5 and greater. These displacements are used by seismologists to understand the earthquake source in detail.

Ground Shaking

Past earthquakes have shown that the amplification of motions due to surface-to-bedrock geology, 3D crustal structure, and topography have a major influence on seismic damage and loss in urban areas.

Cone Penetration Testing (CPT)

This research focuses on the ability to determine what areas are more prone to experiencing effects such as liquefaction and landslides when there is shaking from an earthquake.

San Francisco Bay Area Arrays

Seismologists have observed that both topographic highs and basins have complex and varying effects on seismic waves. By deploying arrays of seismic recorders our understanding is improved of what specific features have what specific effects on the seismic waves.

East Bay Seismic Experiment

The implosion of the Warren Hall building on California State University East Bay (CSU-EB) campus in August of 2013 provided an excellent opportunity to use a “free” seismic source that was practically located on the Hayward Fault.

Rock Physics Labs

There are currently two main Experimental Rock Physics Laboratories in the Earthquake Science Center in Menlo Park, California. These laboratories specialize in generating earthquakes under controlled conditions.

Deformation History Animations

These animations reconstruct the geography of California through time and help predict how it will change in the future.

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Major environmental events write their own headlines. With loss of life and crippling infrastructure damage, the aftershocks of earthquakes reverberate around the world — not only as seismic waves, but also in the photos and news stories that follow a major seismic event. So, it is no wonder that both scientists and the public are keen to understand the dynamics of faults and their hazard potential, with the ultimate goal of prediction.

To do this, William Frank and Camilla Cattania, assistant professors in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), have teamed up as EQSci@MIT to uncover hidden earthquake behaviors and fault complexity, through observation, statistics, and modeling. Together, their complementary avenues of research are helping to expose the fault mechanics underpinning everything from aseismic events, like slow slip actions that occur over periods of hours or months, to large magnitude earthquakes that strike in seconds. They’re also looking at the ways tectonic regions interact with neighboring events to better understand how faults and seismic events evolve — and, in the process, shedding light on how frequently and predictably these events might occur.

“Basically, [we’re] trying to build together a pipeline from observations through modeling to answer the big-picture questions,” says Frank. “When we actually observe something, what does that mean for the big-picture result, in places where we have strong heterogeneity and lots of earthquake activity?”

Observing Earth as it creeps

While there are many ways to investigate different types of earthquakes and faults, Frank takes a detailed and steady approach: looking at slow-moving, low wave frequency earthquakes — called slow slip — in subduction zones over long periods of time. These events tend to go unnoticed by the public and lack an obvious seismic wave signature that would be registered by seismometers. However, they play a significant role in tectonic buildup and release of energy. “When we start to look at the size of these slow slip events, we realize that they are just as big as earthquakes,” says Frank.

His group leverages geodetic data, like GPS, to monitor how the ground moves on and near a fault to reveal what’s happening along the plate interface as you descend deeper underground. In the crust, near the surface, the plates tend to be locked together along the boundary, building up pressure and then releasing it as a giant earthquake. However, below that region, Frank says, the rocks are more elastic and can deform and creep, which can be picked up on instrumentation. “There are events that are transient. They happen over a set period of time, just like an earthquake, but instead of several seconds to minutes, they last several days to months,” he says.

Since slow slip has the capacity to cause energy loading in subduction zones through both stress and release, Frank and his group want to understand how slow earthquakes interact with seismic regions, where there’s potential for a large earthquake. By digging into observational data, from long-term readings to those taken on the scale of a few hours, Frank has learned that often there are many tiny earthquakes that repeat during slow slip. While a first glance at the data may look like just noise, clear signals emerge on closer inspection that reveal a lot about the subsurface plate interface — like the presence of trapped fluid, and how subduction zones behave at different locations along a fault.

“If we really want to understand where and when and how we're going to have a big earthquake, you have to understand what's happening around it,” says Frank, who has projects spread out around the globe, investigating subducting plate boundaries from Japan to the Pacific Northwest, and all the way to Antarctica.

Modeling complexity

Camilla Cattania’s work provides a counterpoint for Frank’s. Where the Frank group incorporates seismic and geodetic record collection, Cattania employs numerical, analytical, and statistical tools to understand the physics of earthquakes. Through modeling, her team can test hypotheses and then look for corroborating evidence in the field, or vice versa, using collected data to inform and refine models. Influenced by major seismic hazards in her home country of Italy, Cattania is keenly interested in the potential to contribute models for practical use in earthquake forecasting.

One aspect of her work has been to reconcile theoretical models with the complex reality of fault geometry. Each fault has its own physical characteristics that affect its behavior and can evolve over time — not just the dimensions of the fault, but also factors like the orientation of the rock fractures, the elastic properties of the rocks, and the irregularity and roughness of their surfaces. When looking into numerical models of aftershock sequences, she was able to show that they weren’t as predictive as statistical models because previous models were using idealized fault planes in the calculations.

To remedy this, Cattania explored ways to incorporate fault geometry that's more consistent with the complexity found in nature. “We were the first to implement this in a systematic way and then compare it to statistical models, and … to show that these physical models can do well, if you make them realistic enough,” she says.

Cattania has also been looking into modeling how the physical properties of faults control the frequency and size of earthquakes — a key question in understanding the hazards they pose. Some earthquake sequences tend to recur at intervals, but most don’t, defying easy prediction. In trying to understand why this is, Cattania explains, size is everything. “It turns out that periodicity is a property which depends on the size of the earthquake. It's much more unlikely to get periodic behavior for a large earthquake than it is for a small one, and it just comes out of the fundamental physics of how friction and elasticity control the cycle,” she says.

A synergistic approach

Ultimately, through their collaboration in EAPS at MIT, Frank and Cattania are trying to build more communication between observation and modeling in order to foster more rapid advancements in earthquake science. “Ever-improving seismic and geodetic measurements, together with new data analysis techniques, are providing unprecedented opportunities to probe fault behavior,” says Cattania. “With numerical models and theory, we try to explain why faults slip the way they do, and the best way to make progress is for modelers and observationalists to talk to each other.”

“What I really like about observational geophysics, and for my science to be useful, is collaborating and interacting with many different people,” says Frank. “Part of that is bringing together the different observational approaches and the constraints that we can generate, and [then] communicating our results to the modelers. More often than not, there's not as much communication as we'd like [between the groups]; so I’m super excited about Camilla being here.”

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Earthquake effects on civil engineering structures and perspective mitigation solutions: a review

• Review Paper
• Published: 08 July 2021
• Volume 14 , article number  1350 , ( 2021 )

Cite this article

• Mohsin Abbas 1 ,
• Khalid Elbaz 2 , 3 ,
• Shui-Long Shen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5610-7988 2 , 3 &
• Jun Chen 4  

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Earthquakes are natural phenomena which cannot be controlled, but their effects can be minimised. This study proposes a state-of-the-art review of the main effects of earthquakes on civil engineering structures and provides possible mitigation solutions to reduce seismic vulnerability. The main aspects reviewed include the liquefaction in dams and tunnels, the cracking and tilting of roads and buildings, and the live-load and scour-depth effects on bridges. The main causes of earthquakes and their problems on civil engineering structures through observations in recent great earthquakes are discussed. Results show that a large damage contrast has been observed between developed and undeveloped/underdeveloped countries credited to the incredible financial, social, and cultural contrasts between third-world and world-leading nations. A lesson learned is also introduced for the design of structures with the consideration of permanent ground deformation to mitigate the damage caused by earthquakes incorporating the effect of permanent deformation on structures.

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The research work was funded by “The Pearl River Talent Recruitment Program” in 2019 (Grant No. 2019CX01G338), Guangdong Province and the Research Funding of Shantou University for New Faculty Member (Grant No. NTF19024-2019).

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Abbas, M., Elbaz, K., Shen, SL. et al. Earthquake effects on civil engineering structures and perspective mitigation solutions: a review. Arab J Geosci 14 , 1350 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-07664-5

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Why is an earthquake dangerous?

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Over the centuries, earthquakes have been responsible for millions of deaths and an incalculable amount of damage to property. Depending on their intensity, earthquakes (specifically, the degree to which they cause the ground’s surface to shake) can topple buildings and bridges , rupture gas pipelines and other infrastructure, and trigger landslides , tsunamis , and volcanoes .  These phenomena are primarily responsible for deaths and injuries. Very great earthquakes occur on average about once per year.

Earthquake waves, more commonly known as seismic waves , are vibrations generated by an earthquake and propagated within Earth or along its surface. There are four principal types of elastic waves: two, primary and secondary waves, travel within Earth, whereas the other two, Rayleigh and Love waves, called surface waves, travel along its surface. In addition, seismic waves can be produced artificially by explosions.

Magnitude is a measure of the amplitude (height) of the seismic waves an earthquake’s source produces as recorded by seismographs . Seismologist Charles F. Richter created an earthquake magnitude scale using the logarithm of the largest seismic wave’s amplitude to base 10. Richter’s scale was originally for measuring the magnitude of earthquakes from magnitudes 3 to 7, limiting its usefulness. Today the moment magnitude scale, a closer measure of an earthquake’s total energy release, is preferred.

Earthquakes can occur anywhere, but they occur mainly along fault lines (planar or curved fractures in the rocks of Earth’s crust ), where compressional or tensional forces move rocks on opposite sides of a fracture. Faults extend from a few centimetres to many hundreds of kilometres. In addition, most of the world’s earthquakes occur within the Ring of Fire , a long horseshoe-shaped belt of earthquake epicentres , volcanoes , and tectonic plate boundaries fringing the Pacific basin .

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earthquake , any sudden shaking of the ground caused by the passage of seismic waves through Earth ’s rocks. Seismic waves are produced when some form of energy stored in Earth’s crust is suddenly released, usually when masses of rock straining against one another suddenly fracture and “slip.” Earthquakes occur most often along geologic faults , narrow zones where rock masses move in relation to one another. The major fault lines of the world are located at the fringes of the huge tectonic plates that make up Earth’s crust. ( See the table of major earthquakes.)

Little was understood about earthquakes until the emergence of seismology at the beginning of the 20th century. Seismology , which involves the scientific study of all aspects of earthquakes, has yielded answers to such long-standing questions as why and how earthquakes occur.

About 50,000 earthquakes large enough to be noticed without the aid of instruments occur annually over the entire Earth. Of these, approximately 100 are of sufficient size to produce substantial damage if their centres are near areas of habitation. Very great earthquakes occur on average about once per year. Over the centuries they have been responsible for millions of deaths and an incalculable amount of damage to property.

The nature of earthquakes

Causes of earthquakes.

Earth’s major earthquakes occur mainly in belts coinciding with the margins of tectonic plates. This has long been apparent from early catalogs of felt earthquakes and is even more readily discernible in modern seismicity maps, which show instrumentally determined epicentres. The most important earthquake belt is the Circum-Pacific Belt , which affects many populated coastal regions around the Pacific Ocean —for example, those of New Zealand , New Guinea , Japan , the Aleutian Islands , Alaska , and the western coasts of North and South America . It is estimated that 80 percent of the energy presently released in earthquakes comes from those whose epicentres are in this belt. The seismic activity is by no means uniform throughout the belt, and there are a number of branches at various points. Because at many places the Circum-Pacific Belt is associated with volcanic activity , it has been popularly dubbed the “Pacific Ring of Fire .”

A second belt, known as the Alpide Belt , passes through the Mediterranean region eastward through Asia and joins the Circum-Pacific Belt in the East Indies . The energy released in earthquakes from this belt is about 15 percent of the world total. There also are striking connected belts of seismic activity, mainly along oceanic ridges —including those in the Arctic Ocean , the Atlantic Ocean , and the western Indian Ocean —and along the rift valleys of East Africa . This global seismicity distribution is best understood in terms of its plate tectonic setting .

Natural forces

Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of energy within some limited region of the rocks of the Earth . The energy can be released by elastic strain , gravity, chemical reactions, or even the motion of massive bodies. Of all these the release of elastic strain is the most important cause, because this form of energy is the only kind that can be stored in sufficient quantity in the Earth to produce major disturbances. Earthquakes associated with this type of energy release are called tectonic earthquakes.

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A deeper look into where the really big one could occur

For the first time, NSF-funded researchers revealed a detailed look at the potential for a major earthquake off the coasts of southern British Columbia, Washington, Oregon and northern California.

The new study characterizes the Cascadia Subduction Zone, which includes the "megathrust" fault, where the largest earthquakes initiate and spread, to inform potential earthquake and tsunami hazards.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is 600 miles long and marks where the Juan de Fuca plate is subducting beneath the North American plate. "Although we previously had considerable information about the depth and geometry of the part of the megathrust that’s deep in the subduction zone under land, we had sparse information about the very important offshore portion where the large destructive earthquakes initiate because it’s hidden beneath the seafloor," said Suzanne Carbotte, the lead author and marine geophysicist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

To get to the latter part, Carbotte and a team of researchers led an NSF-funded cruise in 2021 aboard the ship M.G. Langseth , part of the NSF-supported academic research fleet, which is equipped with marine instruments that emit and record sound pulses that can penetrate the seafloor.

The researchers then read the echoes and converted them into images, like sonograms, to characterize the geometry and overlying sediments of the Juan de Fuca plate and the structure of the overriding North American plate.

They found that the megathrust fault is not one continuous structure but rather divided into at least four segments, each potentially unaffected by movements from the others. Longer segments would cause longer ruptures and bigger earthquakes, so movement on one of the segments could be buffered from movement on another.

"Our findings will directly help people who study earthquake and tsunami hazards for the region," Carbotte said.

The team published its findings in the journal Science Advances . 

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• 18 August 2024

These labs have prepared for a big earthquake — will it be enough?

• Anna Ikarashi

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

A powerful earthquake can do heavy damage to university properties. Credit: Yuki Sato/Kyodo News via AP/Alamy

Earlier this month, Japan’s Meteorological Agency issued its first-ever ‘megaquake’ alert, advising that the risk of a large earthquake along the Pacific coast was higher than usual. The warning came after an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.1 on 8 August.

The agency lifted the warning a week later, after no major change in seismic activity was detected. But the alert was another reminder for scientists who live in Japan and other seismic zones of the constant threat that an earthquake could disrupt — or even destroy — their research. So how do they safeguard their laboratories? Nature spoke to seven researchers about their preparations and whether those are enough.

Securing equipment

When the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami hit in March 2011, Masahiro Terada, an organic chemist at Tohoku University in Sendai, found broken glass scattered across his lab, fume hoods weighing 400 kilograms metres away from their usual position and water from broken pipes flooding the space. The smell of organic solvents filled the lab and a fire had broken out in the reagent storage room. Terada lost ten years’ worth of synthesized compounds.

These days, Terada anchors large furniture and equipment directly to the concrete wall and stores reagents in cushioned mesh containers.

Each year, biochemist Hideki Tatsukawa is securing more and more of his lab’s equipment at Nagoya University in Japan, under the institute’s guidance. The university is located in a region that has a more than 70% likelihood of a severe earthquake in the next 30 years, according to the Japanese government. Tatsukawa anchors any equipment taller than one metre, such as refrigerators, with vertical bands to the floor to prevent them from toppling or jumping during a quake.

Tying down equipment is crucial for saving lives and preventing secondary disasters, such as broken gas pipes or exposed electrical wiring that could spark a fire, says Koji Fukuoka, a risk-management researcher formerly at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan. Fires only take two minutes to reach the ceiling in most Japanese buildings, he says, so “removing potential causes of fire needs to be one of the top priorities in a lab setting”. Fukuoka recommends that labs have two evacuation routes in case one of them becomes compromised.

Damage to equipment during earthquakes can also result in considerable financial losses. During the 2011 quake, damage to research instruments cost Tohoku University 26.9 billion yen (US$180 million). In the wake of that earthquake, the university established a Disaster Management Promotion Office, which issues technical guidelines on how to secure equipment depending which floor of the building they are on. For instance, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy instruments should be installed on the ground floor and on top of a base isolation stand, which isolates the equipment from the floor so that it moves independently of the shaking ground. NMR instruments can explode because the helium liquid they contain becomes a gas when the equipment is broken and might deplete rooms of oxygen.

“But, to our knowledge, these learnings haven’t been shared across universities systematically,” says Takeshi Sato, a disaster-prevention scientist at Tohoku University. Fukuoka also notes that, without expert advice and dissemination of knowledge, each lab’s precautions might not be enough in the event of very strong shaking.

Backing up samples

One of the main concerns for Kentaro Noma, a neurobiologist at Nagoya University, is losing the more than 600 unique strains of nematode worm ( Caenorhabditis elegans ) that he has produced over the course of his career so he could study the relationship between genetics and the ageing of neurons. “Losing the strains not only compromises my own work, but research reproducibility for the wider scientific community,” he says.

In addition to the stocks that Noma currently uses for his research, he maintains two backup collections: one in a freezer cooled to −80 °C kept in his lab and another stored in liquid nitrogen, also in the lab. The freezer has a backup power generator that runs on gasoline; the collection stored in liquid nitrogen serves as an extra safeguard in case of an extreme disaster, when there is no access to fuel. “It’s not perfect, but the liquid-nitrogen freezer buys us an extra 1–2 weeks to devise longer-term measures,” he says.

Tatsukawa, who studies the functions of proteins in model organisms, preserves genetically engineered lines of mice and medaka fish ( Oryzias latipes ) by extracting sperm, mixing the samples with a preservation solution and freezing them in liquid nitrogen. The cryogenically preserved samples can be thawed, and female animals can be artificially inseminated to restart the line.

Similar precautions are being taken by scientists at the University of California in the San Francisco Bay Area, which sits directly on top of the Hayward Fault. There is a more than 30% chance of an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 or higher occurring on the fault by 2043.

Dirk Hockemeyer, a cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, also cryogenically preserves his stem-cell lines in liquid nitrogen, a standard procedure in his field. He has more than 25,000 vials of cell lines produced by the 50 researchers that have worked in his lab over the past 10 years. As a preventative measure, Hockemeyer keeps duplicates of valuable cell lines in liquid nitrogen in different buildings in case one collapses.

Research animals

For scientists who work with animals, there are many factors to consider in earthquake preparation. In Japan, facilities with primates typically have two-tiered walls so that if one layer is destroyed, the other keeps the animals contained, says Ikuma Adachi, a primatologist at Kyoto University in Inuyama. Kyoto University’s Center for Human Evolution Modeling Research houses 11 chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) and 800 macaques ( Macaca sp.). “Primates are very sensitive to changes in the environment and will become anxious during disasters,” he says. Securing water for them to drink and maintaining hygienic conditions for the animals to live in is also crucial, says Adachi.

“The best we can do is to prepare measures and protocols in advance so that it guides decision-making during emotionally challenging times,” he says.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02622-z

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How Are Earthquakes Studied?

Damage and shaking.

Seismologists study earthquakes by looking at the damage that was caused and by using seismometers. A seismometer is an instrument that records the shaking of the Earth's surface caused by seismic waves. The term seismograph usually refers to the combined seismometer and recording device.

The First Earthquake Detectors

The first known earthquake detector was invented in 132 A.D. by the Chinese astronomer and mathematician Chang Heng. He called it an "earthquake weathercock."

Each of the eight dragons had a bronze ball in its mouth. Whenever there was even a slight earth tremor, a mechanism inside the seismograph would open the mouth of one dragon. The bronze ball would fall into the open mouth of one of the toads, making enough noise to alert someone that an earthquake had just happened. Imperial watchmen could tell the direction the earthquake came from by seeing which dragon's mouth was empty.

In 136 A.D. a Chinese scientist named Choke updated the meter and called it a "seismoscope." Columns of a viscous liquid replaced the metal balls. The height the liquid washed up the side of the vessel indicated the intensity and a line joining the points of maximum motion denoted the direction of the tremor.

Seismographs

Most seismographs today are electronic, but the basic design and components are still the same: a drum with paper on it, a bar or spring with a hinge at one or both ends, a weight, and a pen. One end of the bar or spring is bolted to a pole or metal box fixed to the ground. The weight is placed on the other end of the bar and the pen is attached to the weight. The paper-covered drum presses against the pen and turns constantly. When there is an earthquake, everything in the seismograph moves with the Earth except the weight with the pen on it. As the drum and paper shake next to the pen, the pen makes squiggly lines on the paper, creating a record of the earthquake. This record made by the seismograph is called a seismogram .

By studying the seismogram, the seismologist can tell how far away the earthquake was and how strong it was. This record doesn't tell the seismologist exactly where the epicenter was, just that the earthquake happened so many miles or kilometers away from that seismograph. To find the exact epicenter, you need to know what at least two other seismographs in other parts of the country or world recorded. We'll get to that in a minute. First, you have to learn how to read a seismogram.

How Do I Read a Seismogram?

When you look at a seismogram, there will be wiggly lines all across it. These are all the seismic waves that the seismograph has recorded. Most of these waves were so small that nobody felt them. These tiny microseisms can be caused by nearby activities, such as heavy traffic or wind, or by distant sources such as interactions of waves with the ocean floor. They may also be caused by earthquakes that are too small or too far away to be recognized as earthquakes.

So which wiggles are the earthquake? The P wave will be the first wiggle that is bigger than the background signals). Because P waves are the fastest seismic waves, they will usually be the first ones that your seismograph records. The next set of seismic waves on your seismogram will be the S waves. These are usually bigger than the P waves. The waves that arrive between the P and S waves are waves that started out as P waves, but bounced off of features in the Earth or at the surface and arrived at the seismic station a little later.

The surface waves (Love and Rayleigh waves) are the other, often larger, waves marked on the seismogram. They have a lower frequency , which means that waves (the lines; the ups-and-downs) are more spread out. Surface waves travel a little slower than S waves (which, in turn, are slower than P waves) so they tend to arrive at the seismograph just after the S waves. For shallow earthquakes (earthquakes with a focus near the surface of the Earth), the surface waves may be the largest waves recorded by the seismograph. Often they are the only waves recorded a long distance from medium-sized earthquakes.

Where Can I Find Seismic Data?

Many organizations monitor earthquakes throughout the world. The Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology , or IRIS, provides a data center with thousands of seismic stations. The Seismographs in Schools program is a great place to start. You can search for data from an earthquake using a world map , and find links to stations that recorded it.

How Can I Locate the Earthquake Epicenter?

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Post-traumatic growth of people who have experienced earthquakes: Qualitative research systematic literature review

Hyun-ok jung.

1 College of Nursing, The Research Institute of Nursing Science, Daegu Catholic University, Daegu, South Korea

Seung-Woo Han

2 Department of Nursing, Kwangju Women's University, Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju, South Korea

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Introduction

Earthquakes can have a variety of physical, emotional, and social effects on the people who experience them. Post-traumatic Growth (PTG) results from people attempting to reconstruct their lives after experiencing a traumatic event. We intend to inform the local community of the importance of disaster psychology by identifying and analyzing the literature on post-traumatic growth experiences of subjects who experienced earthquakes.

This study applied a systematic review of qualitative research published from January 1, 2012 to January 31, 2021 to understand PTG in people who have experienced earthquakes. The search expressions “Post-traumatic Growth”, “Earthquake”, “Qualitative” were applied to CINAHL, EMBASE, PubMed, PsycInfo, KISS, RISS, and NDSL databases. Initially, 720 papers were found; after removal of duplicates, 318 remained. After a review of titles and abstracts, 186 papers that did not meet the selection criteria of this study were removed. After a further examination of the remaining 132 papers, the researchers removed 65 papers that did not match the research topic. Lastly, of the remaining 67 papers, detailed review eliminated quantitative papers that did not match this study (25), articles that were not original (19), articles in which results were not PTG (8), articles that were not related to this study (3), articles that were not written in English (2), or articles that had mixed topics (2). Eight papers remained.

The results of this study show that the PTG in people who have experienced earthquakes can be classified into three categories: “Change in self-perception”, “Change of interpersonal relationships”, and “Spiritual change”. They can be further classified into eight subcategories: “Reviewing one's existence”, “Acceptance”, “Discovering strengths by working through adversity”, “Gratitude for life”, “Changes in personal relations”, “Changes in social relations”, “Accepting the existence of God”, and “A breakthrough to overcome difficulties”.

These results can be used as basic data for a positive psychological understanding for those who have experienced earthquake trauma.

Earthquakes are unpredictable and uncontrollable as they occur suddenly, often without warning ( 1 ). In the past year, 103 earthquakes have occurred in the New Caledonia Noumea region of the South Pacific, including one with a magnitude of 7.9. Furthermore, 77 earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or higher have occurred in South Korea ( 2 ). Earthquakes affect humans in a variety of physical, emotional and social ways. Physical effects include various degrees of injury. Emotional effects include anxiety, fear, anger, and depression. Social effects include loss of infrastructure, destruction of communities and workspaces, and damage to the natural environment ( 1 ). Through these effects, earthquakes can have a transformative effect on a person's life ( 1 , 3 ). Natural disasters such as earthquakes are traumatic events that humans did not intend, which inflicts pain on individuals' lives, but in the field of changed life, humans experience another growth and recovery ( 4 ).

Post-traumatic growth has been actively studied in various population groups. In a study on post-traumatic growth of college students who experienced an earthquake, depression was found to be a factor influencing post-traumatic growth ( 5 ). A study on childhood who experienced natural disasters showed that the level of post-traumatic stress following the disaster affects post-traumatic growth ( 6 ). This suggests that emotional states or pain, such as depression or level of post-traumatic stress, are catalytic factors for overcoming the negative psychological consequences of traumatic events. Various traumatic experiences can also influence mental disorders in childhood. In previous study ( 7 ), traumatic experiences in childhood cause various mental health problems. Approximately 20.7% of them had psychotic-like experiences as adults, and 17.5% had frequent delusional experiences. Considering the results of previous studies, it is believed that traumatic experiences in childhood can have a negative impact on mental health even in adulthood, and various therapeutic interventions should be accompanied. Accordingly, personal protective factors (resilience, depression) and social protective factors (Household income and educational level) have been reported as factors that can positively mediate responses to traumatic events ( 5 , 6 , 8 , 9 ).

Calhoun and Tedeschi, who proposed the post-traumatic growth model ( 10 ), argued that in order to experience post-traumatic growth, the psychological pain induced by the traumatic event and the collapse of individual core beliefs were required. In other words, post-traumatic growth is closely related to negative psychological conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, and the representative symptoms of post-traumatic symptoms are intrusion, avoidance, and hyperarousal ( 11 ). As a result of studying the post-traumatic growth of terrorist survivors who experienced PTSD ( 12 ), emotional numbing of survivors was found to be related to post-traumatic growth after about 6–12 months, so it is necessary to study various psychological symptoms induced by PTSD. However, it was mentioned that humans do not always accept pain negatively, but rather try to resolve traumatic experiences more positively and goal-focused on the basis of resilience ( 10 ). The importance of positive coping strategies should continue to pay attention.

Post-traumatic Growth (PTG) is an improvement in mental health that occurs while a person develops a better understanding of the meaning of traumatic events, and starts to gain hope for life ( 6 , 13 ). Post-traumatic growth tool development research includes personal strength, new possibilities, relating to others, appreciation of life, and spiritual change ( 14 , 15 ).

The repetitive mental revisiting of the traumatic event by the traumatized person changes cognitive processes, and unpleasant feelings experienced by trauma act as motivations to move forward from the event ( 3 ), and therefore the traumatized persons shows a positive attitude toward understanding themselves, others, and life in general ( 16 ). Therefore, the traumatized person gains confidence that he or she is capable and strong ( 1 , 17 ), and starts to make efforts to know the importance of not returning to the pre-traumatic period. They also try to live a better life by realizing the meaning of life, by finding good behavior to achieve the life they want to pursue, and by inducing positive changes such as escaping from bad behavior ( 3 ). Therefore, PTG is an active and positive process that restructures individual lives to pursue better independent lives ( 3 , 18 ). If common growth experiences of traumatized people can be understood, community health professionals can help traumatized patients escape from pain and return to their pre-traumatic lives.

In this study, a systematic review of qualitative research was conducted to understand the PTG experience of subjects who had experienced earthquakes. A phenomenological research method is applied to derive meaningful subjective interpretations to understand the positive psychological changes of people traumatized by earthquakes. Furthermore, this study intends to lead a quality life by finding the meaning of life through post-traumatic growth and forming a sense of purpose to rebuild a new life.

Materials and methods

Study design.

This study performs a systematic review to search for previous papers and evaluate their quality to ensure that they represent the PTG experience of subjects who have experienced earthquakes.

Research protocol

The purpose of this study is to systematically review the literature of qualitative studies that have studied the post-traumatic growth experiences of subjects who have experienced earthquakes. Based on the qualitative evaluation protocol of the qualitative research, the CASP (Critical Appraisal Skills Program) qualitative research checklist ( 19 ) was used. This CASP qualitative research checklist extracts data based on the following 10 systematic protocols. (1) Is there a clear description of the research goal? (2) Is the methodology for qualitative research appropriate? (3) Study design (4) Recruitment strategy (5) Appropriate data collection method (6) Relationship between researcher and subject (7) Ethical issue (8) Analysis method (9) Is there a clear description of the results? (10) research value.

Literature search and literature selection

In this study, to search for qualitative literature on the experiences of post-traumatic growth of subjects who experienced earthquakes, the literature was searched through foreign databases CINAHL, EMBASE, PubMed, and PsycInfo and domestic databases KISS, RISS and NDSL. Overseas databases checked the terms of MeSH and extracted all of the terms “Post-traumatic Growth”, “Earthquake”, and “Qualitative Research” as intervention methods.

According to the characteristics of each database, MeSH terms and text words were used for the search formula, and methods to increase the specificity in addition to the sensitivity of the search were used by applying the Boolean operators AND/OR and truncation search. The domestic database search was based on the search strategy used for overseas searches, but considering the lack of a MeSH search function, the search was conducted according to the characteristics of each database. As the keywords for the search, concepts such as post-traumatic growth, earthquake, and qualitative research were searched and extracted. The literature selection criteria were (1) qualitative research on post-traumatic growth of earthquake-experienced individuals, (2) papers published in the last 10 years from January 1, 2012 to January 31, 2021, (3) In case of overlap between academic research paper and degree thesis, academic research paper was selected and (4) academic research paper composed in English and Korean was included. The exclusion criteria were (1) papers using words similar to post-traumatic growth (e.g., psychological adaptation and resilience), (2) papers published before and after between January 1 2012 and January 31, 2021, (3) papers related to natural disasters other than earthquakes (e.g., floods, forest fires, etc.), (4) papers not published in English or Korean.

Data collection

In this study, the literature was selected according to the selection and exclusion criteria, and the selection process was described in the following stages: Identification → Screening → Eligibility → Included. A total of 720 documents were searched in the database, and 318 articles were derived after removing 402 documents that were duplicated. Two researchers reviewed the title and abstract of a total of 318 articles, and 132 articles were first selected, excluding 186 articles that did not meet the selection criteria of this study. Of the 132 papers that were reviewed according to the same criteria and process, mainly the original text, 65 papers that did not match the research topic were excluded through three meetings, and 67 papers were secondarily selected. Finally, cross-analysis was performed twice on 67 documents that researchers secured the suitability of the study. The final 8 papers were selected except for the quantitative papers (25 papers), non-original articles (19 papers), post-traumatic growth papers (8 papers), papers (3 papers), non-English papers (2 papers), and mixed papers (2 papers) that did not correspond to this study. The searched literature was independently performed by two researchers, and the final paper was selected through discussion in case of disagreement ( Figure 1 ).

Flow chart of the sample selection process.

Ethical consideration

This study was approved by the K University Institutional Review Board (IRB No: 1041459-202103-HR-004-01) as it complied with research ethics in the use of literature data.

Assessment of research quality

This research generally used the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP) to evaluate the quality of qualitative research; CASP is an effective means of improving the understanding of individual studies ( 20 ). The final selection of papers was evaluated using CASP, which determined that all met 23 to 26 out of 28 items, and therefore were appropriate for use in this study. Specifically, two papers did not conform to “Qualitative methodology for question?”, two papers did not conform to “Discussed saturation of data?”, and five were inconsistent in the item “Critically examined the role, potential bias and influence during data collection?” These results suggest that the biases that are caused during data collection in future qualitative studies should be closely examined. Two papers did not meet the items “Sufficient details of how the research was explained to participants” and two did not meet “Approval sought from an ethics committee?” This result suggests that compliance with research ethics should be considered as being important in qualitative research. One paper did not meet the “In-depth description of the analysis process?” item, and one did not meet the “Sufficient data presented to support the findings?” Six papers that did not meet the item of “Contradictory data taken into account?”, and CASP evaluation showed that this item was the most frequently violated. This observation implies that bias in research should be minimized by specifically stating and reviewing contradictory data in qualitative research. Finally, two papers did not meet “Discussed evidence for and against research's arguments?” and “Discussed contribution study makes to existing knowledge?” ( Table 1 ). We then checked the systematic literature review based on the PRISMA checklist ( 21 ).

Quality assessment (CASP, Critical Appraisal Skills Programme).

Characteristics of literature subject to systematic literature review

The eight papers that were ultimately selected in this study were all published from 2015 to 2020, and most focused on subjects in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia, where earthquakes occur frequently. Interview duration ranged from 30 to 240 min (or no duration was provided), and the action was described as a revisit to ask a question or an additional question. The number of subjects studied ranged from four to 23, and included both males and females, although one paper did not specifically mention the gender(s) of the participants. The ages of the subjects ranged from the teens to the sixties. Occupations were middle and high school students, college students, nurses, and psychiatric specialists. Data collection used semi-structured interviews in five cases, and in-depth interviews in three cases ( Table 2 ).

Demographic characteristic.

Post-traumatic growth experience of earthquake-experienced people

The papers finally selected in this study were assigned to three categories and eight subcategories encompassing the PTG experiences of subjects who had experienced an earthquake ( Table 3 ).

Categories and subcategories of PTG response.

Change in self-perception

The first category of responses identified in this study is a change in self-perception. By reflecting on the world in which they live and by changing their values and philosophy on life, the traumatized people reflected on the meaning of life and became aware of their existence. This change meant the subjects who had experienced earthquakes found their inner strength and could accept their current life and overcame the adversity that they had experienced.

Reviewing one's existence

Some subjects who experienced PTG after an earthquake underwent a change in attitude toward life. Before the event, they thought they were just ordinary people, but afterward, they realized their own importance. They also realized the limitations of their existence in that they could not do anything in the face of an earthquake, and experienced a change in life priorities.

“ Many things that had previously seemed to be important in the past are no longer important. After experiencing an earthquake, I felt that I should value myself more and I realized that I was precious to others. I've lived for others, but from now on I want to live a more valuable life for myself because you only get one chance at life .” ( 22 , 24 ) “ My view of the world has suddenly changed. The world is not as gentle as I thought, the earth can move under my feet, and buildings can collapse around me at any point. The earthquake made me realize so many things; that human beings are weak, small, and not omnipotent. I want to be a person who has a purpose in life because I live to die and I am always ready to die...” ( 3 , 25 )

Most of the subjects who experienced the earthquake realized that the place where they lived was not safe: that it could take away someone's life in an instance, and they learned the importance of accepting this fact as a part of life.

“ I try to think of pain as a normal part of life because life is not about letting go of the pain, but about carrying it with you. So life has no answer. It would be more comfortable if the answer was given to you. I couldn't express my sad feelings after experiencing the earthquake. I can't erase the thought that the residents who had been with me disappeared one by one and lost what they had built up. But I thought I shouldn't feel pain because my family was safe .” ( 25 , 26 )

Discovering strengths by working through adversity

Some subjects who underwent PTG after experiencing an earthquake said that the experience of an earthquake did not emphasize human weakness. They felt that humans were stronger than they thought because they did not die even though they had experienced a terrifying environment. They had learned that their strengths were not simply limited to physical strength, but also include the inherent tendency, intrinsic flexibility, confidence, and occupational consciousness that all humans possess.

“ After experiencing the earthquake, I became more positive because seeing the collapsed city rebuild itself and thinking about what was going to happen now and, in the future, made things less confusing and more hopeful. I saw the difficult things, but I also saw the beautiful things. I have learned a lot. Living by overcoming this situation had made me face new challenges, and now I believe I can do anything.” ( 1 , 22 , 23 ) “ Looking back on whether I really responded well to others after the earthquake made me realize a lot and helped me grow my professional expertise as well as my own personal growth. Also, after the earthquake, I had learned how to deal with uncontrollable situations during work. I was impressed to see people recover one by one. By knowing that patients can recover from their pain, we have learned that we should not overlook anything for them” ( 25 , 26 )

Gratitude for life

Some subjects who experienced PTG after the earthquake showed a positive change compared to life before the earthquake.

“ I wasn't hurt or killed and the house wasn't badly damaged. Although I haven't been hurt, I think it's a very amazing experience to be with other people who have been hurt. The earthquake was a pretty good experience for me, and I think it was an opportunity to remind me of my existential appreciation for life. Through this experience, I want to look back on myself and live my life with gratitude for everything .” ( 22 , 23 )

Change of interpersonal relationship

Some subjects who went through PTG after experiencing an earthquake changed positively in realizing that people should develop mutual relations with others, and help and support each other. These subjects showed more active behaviors such as taking care of family, friends, and colleagues, and showed empathy with people in need.

Changes in personal relations

Some subjects who underwent PTG after the earthquake experienced a change in their interpersonal relationships completely different from before the earthquake.

“ I have a reduced prejudice against others and my neighbors. Before, I had a prejudice against people from other regions or people from other religions, and after experiencing the earthquake, I tried to see the positive aspects of those people. I realized that the pain of others was my pain because the whole country suffered. In the end, shared experiences with people who experienced earthquakes has given me an opportunity to experience hope, solidarity, learning and growth as well as pain.” ( 23 , 24 ) “ After the earthquake, I realized many things. When I go to work I feel like I'm the only one working hard, and I wondered why my colleagues wouldn't work hard. But I noticed that they also worked hard and did their best. We survived and we are still working hard. Through this, we could feel a different sense of fellowship than before. In the past, I was just resting at home doing nothing, but now I help my parents and cook for them. I realized that what really matters is my relationship with my family, friends and colleagues.” ( 3 , 22 , 26 )

Changes in social relations

Some subjects who experienced PTG after an earthquake then viewed social relations completely differently compared to before the earthquake. Community solidarity with other communities increased and people felt friendliness with residents. In addition, the earthquake experience allowed subjects to feel the culture of helping each other unlike before, so they experienced many changes in the form of social networking.

“ After the earthquake, I could feel that my intimacy with my neighbors increased and the community was strengthening. The earthquake brought us together and allowed us to feel the atmosphere of harmony and cooperation. Also, I was able to cooperate with people from other professions, and I was able to help people who are more in need than I am .” ( 24 , 26 ) “ I give up my things to others, and I am not only thinking about myself or my family, but also other people. After the earthquake, I contacted people with who I had a distant relationship with and encouraged them to participate in aid agencies. Also, I made frequent contact with nurses at local hospitals and cooperated with them when they were having difficulties. We were able to talk directly to local group staff who had no involvement before the earthquake. So am now more capable of helping people who are in a more difficult situation than me compared to before the earthquake .” ( 3 , 26 )

Spiritual change

The third essential theme of the final selected papers in this study is spiritual change. Some people who experienced the earthquake have broadened their religious and spiritual perspectives and felt that the experience of the earthquake was a step toward God. After all, it was an experience that reminded me once again that being alive in an earthquake was the same as if God was alive.

Accepting the existence of god

For some people, the experience of the earthquake increased their faith in religion and God, because they believed that they survived the earthquake because God had helped them. They also said that the experience of an earthquake was a part of the process of approaching God. In the end, it was an opportunity to experience the ability of humans to live with God, and that religion is not a metaphysical point of view, but an existential point of view.

“ After a disaster, my chance to live is a gift from God. After seeing what the Lord is doing for us, I started praising God. After experiencing the earthquake, I think the disaster has become a channel to connect with God. In doing so, I think the relationship between me and God has been further strengthened.” ( 1 , 27 )

A breakthrough to overcome difficulties

Among the subjects who experienced an earthquake, those who experienced PTG experienced the power of religion differently. Those with religion were more flexible than those without religion in their coping attitude to overcome difficulties and experienced the difficult moments (such as facing death) through God.

“ I feel the power of religion, and I can overcome the trauma through religion. I have religion on the basis of my life as a whole and I can overcome my difficulties through faith.” My environment, based on the influence of my parents and my religious life, helped me to overcome and overcome the earthquake even after the earthquake. If you have faith, you will find Paradise as a reward for your difficulties .” ( 24 , 25 )

This study systematically applied a phenomenological research method to understand PTG in subjects who had experienced earthquakes and discussed the categories and subcategories derived from this study.

“Reviewing one's existence” and “Acceptance”, which are subcategories of “Change in self-perception”, reveal the experience of subjects having a change in their view of life and philosophy of life after the earthquake. Also, by discovering strengths while undergoing adversity, and finding gratitude for life, they sublimated their painful traumatic experience into strengths, so the experience of the earthquake was not solely a bad one, but an opportunity to discover that they were grateful just to be alive.

Post-traumatic growth is the result of individuals' cognitive and emotional efforts to treat and give meaning to natural disasters as events in their difficult lives. At this time, fear leads to finding the meaning of life in the event of trauma, and the rumination of questions about life's doubts is later converted to rumination of questions about the meaning of life. Stronger self-confidence and new beliefs are reconstructed ( 4 ).

In previous studies, it was said that human experience of a terrible traumatic event creates new wisdom and experiences post-traumatic growth through the rumination process of thinking about the impact and meaning on one's own existence and life ( 23 ). In the end, by reflecting on one's own existence, it recognizes the optimal direction of life and activates aspiration and hope. This is not a life cycle in which mental suffering through trauma simply falls into a bad abyss. It is to positively accept information related to the new trauma in the meaning and purpose of being in one's life ( 27 ).

In this study, subjects who experienced earthquakes also accepted earthquakes as an unavoidable fate, so just being alive was a great luck and gratitude for their lives, and they recognized earthquakes as good experiences in life. This study result is consistent with the result that the factor of gratitude (Factor V) was statistically significant even in the study of the author who developed the PTG tool ( 28 ).

In particular, “An appreciation for the value of my own life” was 0.85 among the life's gratitude factors, and it was the item most related to post-traumatic growth. After all, the experience of earthquakes can be regarded as a starting point that makes people think about their existential gratitude once again.

We can think about it once again. What could be the cause of these positive emotions? This is because some people experience post-traumatic stress, not post-traumatic growth, after experiencing trauma. In previous study ( 29 ), it was found that in people who survived traumatic events, internal emotions such as guilt and self-deprecation cause post-traumatic stress on the contrary. In this study, subjects who experienced an earthquake also experienced internal suppression in situations in which they were unable to express their shock, fear, and sadness at the death of their colleague. However, they were able to experience post-traumatic growth because human strength existed even in pain. In this study, strength was expressed as flexibility and confidence. It is consistent with this study in that previous study ( 30 ) also mentioned that internal strength factors such as strength and flexibility are triggers that can promote post-traumatic growth and overcome pain. In addition, in the study ( 28 ) of the author who developed the post-traumatic growth tool, the “Knowing I can handle difficulties” item in the personal strength factor (Factor III) was 0.79, which is the same as the result that it is related to post-traumatic growth the most.

In traumatic events, PTG and pain coexist. Dealing with the pain and threats to life's worth of traumatic events requires a lot of time and cognitive effort. Through the repetitive process of understanding and trying to understand the traumatic event experience, human suffering is reduced by experiencing positive psychological changes and meaning to life. In addition, the value and meaning of a new life are integrated, leading to a higher standard of life ( 31 ).

In the second essential theme of this study, 'changes in interpersonal relationships', earthquake victims experienced various changes in personal and social relationships. They demonstrated a reduction in prejudice against others who have different values, and that their value of family, friends, and colleagues increased. In addition, as community solidarity with other communities increased, the experience of cooperative social consciousness changed.

Some subjects who experienced the earthquake realized that the pain experienced during the earthquake was shared by all who experience it. This shared experience between people who had survived the earthquakes allowed people to recognize that they never lived alone, helping them develop a sense of solidarity with others, and gratitude toward family, friends, and colleagues. As a result, in serious situations such as natural disasters, others support trauma experienced people with a sincere heart. Trauma survivors realize or experience the meaning of life through satisfactory relationships, and form close relationships with others by expanding and deepening interpersonal relationships. In particular, this is because, as traumatized people get social support from meaningful relationships, their philosophy of life has changed, reconstructing their meaning system, and more effectively participating in the emotional and cognitive processes of post-traumatic growth ( 4 ). In the previous study ( 32 ), it is consistent with the results of the study that talking and sharing trauma experiences with others increases intimacy with others and improves understanding and empathy for others suffering. In addition, in the study ( 28 ) of the author who developed the post-traumatic growth tool, the “A sense of closeness with others” item in the Relating to Others factor (Factor I) was 0.81, which is the same as the result that it is related to post-traumatic growth the most. Through the earthquake experience, the subjects who experienced pain recognized the importance of human relationships that were different from before. In addition, the formation of social networks, such as cohesion different from those before the earthquake experience, allows earthquake survivors to reconstruct the meaning of the experience and recognize the potential benefits of this experience. In doing so, the experience of events is sublimated positively, improving relationships with others, and creating new life possibilities to experience positive psychological changes ( 33 ). Therefore, through the changed interpersonal relationships, traumatized people discovered a new form of meaning for life after trauma, and formed a sense of purpose to rebuild a new life ( 31 ).

In the spiritual change, which is the last essential theme in this study, earthquake experienced a change in recognizing the existence of God and reflecting on the meaning of religion unlike before. After experiencing an earthquake, these people used religion as a method to overcome difficulties and tried to rely on God to solve problems that they could not overcome. Those who had survived earthquakes cast their survival as evidence of a link between themselves and God, and stated that they had become closer to God by surviving. In doing so, they became more convinced of the existence of God and also experienced a change of spiritual emotions. In previous studies ( 28 , 34 ), spirituality is the factor that has the greatest influence on post-traumatic growth, and through loss, we question our spiritual beliefs. Those who had experienced a traumatic event developed the belief that everything that happened around them was God's spirituality. They had accepted the traumatic event, and this acceptance had led to PTG. This observation is consistent with the results of this study in that by accepting the existence of God and one's relationship with God, one's religious beliefs can become more firmly established ( 28 ). Because human beings are complex beings with interrelated physical, psychological, social, and spiritual capacities, a holistic understanding of traumatic events must incorporate religion and spirituality. Traumatic events not only endanger the physical, psychological and social wellbeing of a person, but also have a powerful impact on the spiritual wellbeing ( 35 – 37 ).

In previous studies ( 36 , 37 ), it is consistent with the research results that traumatized people tried to cope after a crisis through spirituality, and through this, they supported God and positively overcome difficulties.

Religion and spirituality affect not only people's perception of life events and their initial evaluation of traumatic events, but also their chosen coping methods, coping functions, and coping outcomes ( 35 ). Positive religious and spiritual coping methods are secure connections with God, self, and others, including: (1) finding meaning, (2) gaining dominance and control, (3) comforting and increasing intimacy with God, (4) increasing intimacy with others and intimacy with God, (5) achieving life change.

On the other hand, negative religious spiritual coping methods attempt to resolve the five-positive religious spiritual coping functions related to conflicts with God, self, and others, but rather worsen post-traumatic pain ( 38 , 39 ). Earthquake survivors use traumatic events as evidence of God's perfect and mystical will, “for good reason,” or as an opportunity for change in their spiritual growth. In addition, it is interpreted as a spiritual challenge or a test of God's devotion and seeks a partnership to solve problems in cooperation with God by utilizing positive religious and spiritual coping methods. In doing so, gaining dominance and control over disasters, finding a new meaning in life, and forming a sense of purpose for a changed life ( 35 ). This study result is consistent with the result that the factor of Spiritual Change (Factor I) was statistically significant even in the study of the author who developed the PTG tool ( 28 ). In particular, “A better understanding of spiritual matters” was 0.84 among the Spiritual Change factors, and it was the item most related to post-traumatic growth.

As a result of this study, changes in self-perspective, changes in interpersonal relationships, and spiritual changes are all included in the five areas (new possibilities and personal strength, relating to others, spiritual change, appreciation of life) of Tedeschi and Calhoun's PTG tool ( 28 ). When humans experience disasters such as earthquakes, they understand the difficult situation and changed reality they face, and find their strengths in the belief that they are strong.

And as they establish new relationships with others, they realize that the most important thing in life is themselves, and they regain the meaning of a new life given to them after the trauma. Gratitude for a new life every day, through stronger religious beliefs, makes spiritual changes and leads to a positive life.

Finally, in a situation where research on post-traumatic growth is being actively conducted, there was a verification of the post-traumatic growth tool using a variety of population groups as samples. However, it was found that the factor structure differed depending on the country that justified the post-traumatic growth tool. Also, some items did not significantly measure post-traumatic cultural change ( 40 ). Therefore, in order to overcome the limitation that cannot objectively express post-traumatic growth in qualitative research, demographic characteristics or cultural aspects of the country should be considered. Based on the research results from qualitative research, it is considered that it is necessary to continuously supplement the weaknesses of the tool through more practical and multifaceted analysis.

Limitation and future direction

This study does however have some limitations. This study presented papers that studied subjects who experienced the special situation of earthquakes among natural disasters. The results of this study have limitations in covering the post-traumatic growth of subjects who have experienced all-natural disasters. Also, because the research topic was very special, the number of published studies was very limited, and most of the studies were published in a limited country where earthquakes occur frequently in the region. Nevertheless, this study is considered to be very valuable in approaching the actual field phenomena of the post-traumatic growth of earthquake-experienced people by examining the qualitative studies on post-traumatic growth. In the special situation of earthquakes among natural disasters, post-traumatic growth experience analysis can provide basic data for the development of psychological intervention programs in regions where earthquakes frequently occur. So far, systematic literature review has been focused on quantitative research, but qualitative research is very lacking. In particular, in quantitative research, guidelines for evaluating the quality of various documents and data extraction for systematic literature review are presented, but in qualitative research, they are very limited. Therefore, it will be necessary to develop various evaluation tools for qualitative research in future research.

This study systematically reviewed published papers that explored PTG in subjects who experienced earthquakes. It then categorized the different PTG phenomena and their individual significance. This study identified that PTG can involve changes in self-perception, interpersonal relationships, and religious beliefs. The subjects of the research papers changed their views on the value of life by reflecting on their existence rather than by struggling to escape the pain they felt. They also experienced increased appreciation for life as they embraced the experience and overcame their adversity. In addition, they placed more value on the importance of human relationships and felt a sense of solidarity. Finally, some subjects experienced a spiritual change where they realized the meaning of religion and affirmed their belief in the existence of God.

People who experienced the earthquake modified their values of life through traumatic events. Finding the meaning of a new life and examining one's own life promoted growth in areas such as personal strength, relationships with others, gratitude for life, and spirituality. Community health professionals should recognize that post-traumatic growth is a cognitive and emotional result of seeking a new life, and provide opportunities for earthquake victims to discover new forms of meaning in their lives sequentially. In addition, it should be helped to maintain a higher level of life satisfaction through addition or modification of the sense of purpose.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement, author contributions.

H-OJ: conceptualization and investigation. S-WH: methodology and data curation. H-OJ and S-WH: writing-original draft preparation and writing-review and editing. Both authors have read and agree to the published version of the manuscript.

Acknowledgments

This research was followed by research ethics through the Research Ethics Review Committee and helped to proceed by utilizing prior papers.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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The importance of earthquake planning beyond the West Coast

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Correction:  A graphic in this segment mislabeled the state of Kansas.  We regret the error.

This week’s 4.4 magnitude tremor in Los Angeles was along a fault that runs through a densely populated area. But California isn’t the only region in the U.S. with the potential for major earthquakes. Brian Houston, director of the University of Missouri’s Disaster and Community Crisis Center, joins John Yang to discuss earthquake preparedness.

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This week's 4.4 magnitude tremor in Los Angeles didn't do much damage, but it was along a fault that runs through a densely populated area, and scientists warn that that fault has the potential of producing a devastating 7.5 magnitude quake. It's again raised the question of earthquake preparedness in Southern California. But it's not just the west coast that ought to be thinking about that.

John Yang (voice-over):

October 17, 1989, a 6.9 magnitude quake in the San Francisco Bay Area collapses elevated highways in a section of the Bay Bridge.

Candlestick Park is evacuated as the World Series is postponed. Broken gas mains fuel fires that destroy buildings. 63 people die. Damages total more than $6 billion.

February 9, 1971.

A state of emergency in California following the earthquake which disrupted the entire state.

A 6.6 magnitude earthquake in California's San Fernando Valley leaves 65 people dead, some in the partial collapse of a Veterans Administration Hospital. Damage is estimated at $500 million. Quakes many still vividly remember but a less well known seismic event reshaped an area in the middle of the country more than two centuries ago.

For two months at the end of 1811 and the start of 1812 a series of quakes and smaller tremors shook the area around the tiny frontier town of New Madrid, Missouri. The initial shock is estimated to have been about magnitude 7.5. Witnesses said houses collapsed and the earth opened up.

Some said the Mississippi river ran backwards for a short time, trees snapped and geysers of water and sand shot up from deep underground.

Kent Moran, Earthquake Historian:

The effects were in the Epicentral Area Catastrophic. You had landslides. You had liquefaction.

Earthquake historian Kent Moran at the University of Memphis studies the event.

Kent Moran:

The buildings literally being shaken apart at New Madrid, the river sloshing back and forth, the people screaming in panic, the ground opening up all concurrently at same time. The effects were apocalyptic.

It was felt as far away as Louisville, Kentucky in Cincinnati, it rang church bells in Charleston, South Carolina.

They were all puzzled by it's like, why is the ground moving? Why are objects in my house or a cabin swinging back and forth for no apparent reason? Why is the water sloshing back and forth in the stream or pond by my house. It's not supposed to be doing this.

About three and a half million acres of the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys were reshaped. Hills and lakes appeared on previously flat, dry terrain. Two centuries later, the effects are still visible. Stretches of sand that the pressure of the shifting Earth forced to the surface, a phenomenon known as sand blows.

It depopulated it and depressed the population that area for years afterwards.

But now the area is home to millions of people in at least five states, including major cities like Memphis, Tennessee, Little Rock, Arkansas and St Louis.

The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that in the next 50 years, there's a 25 to 40 percent chance of an earthquake of at least magnitude 6.0 in the area, and about a seven to 10 percent probability of a repeat of the 1811, 1812 earthquakes.

Brian Houston is Chair of the University of Missouri's Department of Public Health and director of the school's Disaster and Community Crisis Center.

Mr. Houston, this was, of course, the frontier when this happened in the 1810s but if there were a repeat, what would the results be now in that area?

Brian Houston, University of Missouri Disaster and Community Crisis Center: Yeah, I think that's one of the big issues that you bring up is that the last time this happened almost 200 years ago, there weren't a lot of people in the area. And now there are many more, many more millions of people that live in the area, a lot of transportation infrastructure, highways that cross the Mississippi River and other rivers.

And so the impact of an event as strong as what was experienced in the early 1800s would really impact a lot of homes, a lot of businesses, a lot of transportation. And so would have a significant human toll and also economic impact in the area.

And you talk about spans across the Mississippi, but the Mississippi has become now an important economic pipeline, bringing coal and agricultural products to the world. What would be the effect of having that disrupted?

Brian Houston:

We know that some of the rivers were redirected as a result of these large earthquakes. And so you could imagine if something like that were to happen. Now, the shipping and the transportation that occurs up those rivers could be completely unpassable and not even doable. And of course, as I already mentioned, just getting over those rivers is a big conduit between the, you know, the eastern half and the western half of the country, and so at least in that region, that could be dramatically reduced.

So the estimates of the possibilities of this happen are relatively low, 25 to 40 percent but in the Midwest, you do have every year, you have flooding, you have severe weather, tornadoes. How do you prioritize taking care of preparing for things you know are going to come because they come every year, versus preparing for something like this?

Yeah, that's the big challenge. You know, we've conducted focus groups and collected survey data throughout the new mattered region and that's what we hear from people, is that there are all sorts of other day to day risks that seem very possible and are quite salient.

So flooding for sure severe storms. And so when you put something like an earthquake risk on top of that, when there, you know, doesn't seem to be a huge chance that it's going to happen tomorrow, say, even if it could be quite severe, that in the people we've talked to really falls to the bottom of the list in terms of risks they're thinking about, or planning for, or even concerned about overall well.

Those people who are thinking about that risk, what should they be doing? What should they be thinking about?

Yeah, there's sort of a range of activities that individuals and families can take to prepare for an event like this. Kind of the most basic end. There's things like prepare a disaster kit and have some water and some food and some important medications and documents in a place that if an event like this happens and there's damage to your home or you're displaced, you've got those emergency supplies that you need.

And the nice thing about something like that is it can help with an earthquake, but can also help, you know, if there's some flooding or a severe storm or that sort of thing. And then on the higher end, there's sort of more complex ways to more specifically prepare for earthquakes.

So one of the things we recommend is to make sure heavy objects are bolted to the wall, like water heaters and heavy shells and things like that, so if an earthquake occurs, those things don't fall down and cause more injury or damage. And then maybe I kind of the highest end of preparation is something we talk a lot about with people, which is getting earthquake insurance.

So homeowners insurance does not cover damage to a home from an earthquake, and so for people living in this region, even though it may be a small percentage chance that it's going to happen tomorrow, when you imagine a major event that could significantly damage or even destroy your home. Having something like earthquake insurance might be something that you want to consider doing.

What about state and local emergency preparedness officials? Are they worrying about this?

Definitely, and one of the things they really work on is just making sure people know that this risks exist, because, you know, you don't get a lot of big earthquakes in the area. You talk about earthquakes in the U.S., and you think about California, Washington, you don't usually think about Missouri.

So they're very active in getting the word out that this is a risk, and then doing things like community drills, so people know what to do, right when an earthquake occurs, to stay safe. But again, people have a lot on their minds and a lot on their plates. So even though this may be one risk, it doesn't always seem like the most obvious and likely to occur risk this week.

And on the west coast in California, a lot of attention to building codes for new construction and trying to retrofit existing buildings. Is anything like that going on in the new management area?

Not nearly as much as you see on the West Coast, for sure, because not as many people are aware of this risk. I don't think that there's quite as much emphasis and support on building codes. There are definitely some efforts in some areas, but you don't see a lot of statewide policy in places like Missouri or Tennessee in this area.

So, there's definitely a lot of opportunity for improvement in terms of helping prepare communities relative to building codes, but not a lot going on and not a lot has been done so far.

Brian Houston of University of Missouri, thank you very much.

Thank you, John.

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Earthquake scientists are learning warning signs of the 'big one.' When should they tell the public?

For U.S. seismologists, Japan’s “megaquake” warning last week renewed discussion about when and how to warn people on the West Coast if they find elevated risk of a major earthquake.

COPALIS BEACH, WASH. — When Japan issued its first-ever “megaquake” warning last week, Harold Tobin, Washington state’s seismologist, was watching carefully.

The advisory came after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck the southern island of Kyushu. Although that shaking caused little major damage — the biggest tsunami wave it produced would have risen up to your knee — it wasn’t the main worry.

Rather, seismologists were concerned that the quake would create stress that could trigger a bomb ticking offshore: Japan’s Nankai trough, likely the country’s most dangerous fault. The subduction zone has the potential to generate 100-foot-tall tsunami waves and kill nearly a third of a million people , according to Japanese government estimates.

Did the smaller quake mean that the “big one” was on the doorstep? No one could say for sure, but the odds were suddenly higher — if only by a few percentage points.“Exactly what might keep me up at night,” Tobin said, if it were happening on the U.S. West Coast.

In Japan, the advisory prompted officials to close beaches, cancel fireworks celebrations and slow trains . People rushed to stock up on emergency supplies.

In the U.S., Tobin said, “we don’t have such a protocol.”We do, however, have a similarly dangerous fault: the Cascadia subduction zone.

A magnitude-9.0 earthquake on the Cascadia fault and the resulting tsunami would kill an estimated 14,000 people in Oregon and Washington, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency .

But if a smaller quake like the one Japan just saw happened near Cascadia, seismologists would have to decide on the fly whether and how to alert the public.

It’s the scenario Tobin has been thinking about for years: If he finds clues that a devastating earthquake is more likely, even just slightly, what warrants sounding the alarm? If the odds say you would be crying wolf — should you?

“You don’t want a mass evacuation panic that’s not warranted, but you want people not to go on their merry ways,” Tobin said.

His quandary is, in part, the product of this strange time in Tobin’s field: Researchers think they are homing in on the triggers or precursors of earthquakes in the world’s most dangerous seismic regions, but the science is far from settled. And even when the likelihood of an earthquake could be higher, the chances remain small. That leaves high-stakes questions about when to issue a warning.

On a chilly summer day in Washington state, Tobin and a dozen other scientists canoed up the Copalis River to a graveyard of cedar trees killed 324 years ago.A kingfisher chittered and the wind sent shivers through tall, golden grass. It’s a peaceful place about a mile from the Pacific shore that tells the story of a violent day.

On Jan. 26, 1700, an earthquake on the Cascadia fault caused the forest to lurch downward by more than 3 feet. Soon after, a tsunami perhaps 100 feet high barreled through at 20 or 30 mph.

The scientists were visiting the forest to view the geologic evidence of the Cascadia quake in person. Occasionally, they’d hop out of their canoes, dig through the muck and pull out a 300-year-old pine cone as evidence.

Experts know the earthquake was at least a magnitude-8.7, because that’s how powerful it had to be to send the wave across the world that was documented in Japan.

“Some of the very best written records of our tsunami in 1700 come from Nankai,” said Brian Atwater, a USGS geologist emeritus who led the canoe flotilla. Atwater has used those Japanese records, along with plants buried in tsunami-deposited sand and dates from the rings of the Washington cedar trees, to piece together that tsunami’s story.

Research by USGS geophysicist Danny Brothers indicates there have likely been at least 30 large earthquakes over the last 14,200 years in sections of the Cascadia subduction zone, which runs along the U.S. West Coast from Northern California to northern Vancouver Island. A large earthquake there can be expected at least once every 450-500 years, on average.But for years, Cascadia has remained quiet; some scientists say that’s because much of it is “locked” and building stress. When it rips, a chunk of the seafloor will lurch forward — perhaps by dozens of feet or more. The vertical displacement of the seafloor will send a tsunami toward shore.

“It’s going to be the worst natural disaster in our country’s history,” said Robert Ezelle, the director of Washington state’s emergency management division.

For seismologists, the key question now is how to forecast this future violence. Fast-developing research is hinting that faults like Cascadia and Nankai might send out warning signals: a smaller quake as a foreshock, or a subtle groan only detectable by sensors, which scientists call a slow-slip event.

In Tobin’s nightmare scenario, the Cascadia fault suddenly issues that type of groan. Then — what to do?

If a major Cascadia quake were to hit, more than 100,000 people would be injured, projections say — assuming the quake hits when few people are at the beach. The shaking would last five minutes. Tsunami waves would batter the coast for 10 hours.

Inland hillsides would liquify, taking out roads and bridges. Some 620,000 buildings would be critically damaged or collapse, including an estimated 100 hospitals and 2,000 schools.

“We’re unprepared,” Ezelle said frankly.

Washington state advises residents that they would likely have to fend for themselves and against the elements for two weeks.

“It’s going to be neighbors taking care of neighbors,” Ezelle said.

A map of the Pacific Ring of Fire — where tectonic plates converge to form subduction zones and volcanoes — leaves Ezelle particularly uneasy.

“Over the last 50 to 60 years, and you will see that every subduction zone fault has had a major rupture — with the exception of Cascadia,” he said.

Japan ended its “megaquake” advisory on Thursday , after no unusual activity was detected on the Nankai trough.In a similar situation in New Zealand in 2016, things played out a little differently.

That November, the magnitude-7.8 Kaikoura earthquake rumbled off the east side of New Zealand’s South Island, killing two and causing more than a billion dollars in damage .

A day later, scientists noticed a few centimeters of movement near the shore of the North Island via satellite monitoring. Subtle vibrations were emanating from the Hikurangi Margin, a subduction zone and the country’s largest fault, which is directly under the capital city of Wellington.

It was a slow-slip earthquake, the sloth of the seismic world, kicked off by the Kaikoura shaking. Such quakes release their energy slowly over weeks or months and don’t cause perceptible shaking. Scientists first recognized their existence about two decades ago, thanks to advances in GPS technology.

Some scientists, like Tobin and geophysicist Laura Wallace, think these slow-slip events might sometimes precede big subduction zone quakes. Scientists recorded a slow-slip event in 2011 before the magnitude-9 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which killed more than 18,000 people and touched off the Fukushima nuclear disaster. A similar pattern played out in 2014, before a magnitude-8.1 earthquake in Chile .

Wallace, who was working for the New Zealand research institute GNS Science at the time of the 2016 quake, spent her waking hours scrambling to track the quake’s every movement, model risk and answer questions from the government.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt such an immense load of responsibility,” Wallace said. “I was taking my dog with me to the office because if we had a big earthquake, I didn’t want to be separated from my dog.”

Wallace and her colleagues determined that the probability of a major earthquake was elevated as much as 18 times , and that the risk within a year was 0.6% to 7%. But the big one never materialized.

“Which of these slow-slip events are going to essentially trigger the next big one?” Wallace said. “It’s one of the most important problems we’re trying to understand.”

For the Cascadia subduction zone, gaining a better understanding of the warning signs requires more data on slow-slip events, improved mapping of the fault zone and an enhanced capability of monitoring faults on the seafloor.

Tobin was part of a team that recently mapped the Cascadia subduction zone in the greatest detail yet . They found the fault is separated into four sections, which could rupture all at once or individually in succession. The individual segments are capable of producing a magnitude-8 earthquake or higher.Meanwhile, researchers are trying to bolster the offshore monitoring network for Cascadia.

Japan has a sophisticated array of seafloor sensors, but it’s “one of the few places that have those instruments,” said David Schmidt, a geophysicist at the University of Washington.

The U.S. lags on seafloor monitoring, but Schmidt and Tobin are part of a group that received $10.6 million in federal funding to add seismic sensors and seafloor pressure gauges to a fiber optic cable off the Oregon coast.

The devices will help keep tabs on Cascadia. If the data can help researchers learn about what’s normal for the fault, they might also be able to determine when it’s time to worry.

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News.

• Research article
• Open access
• Published: 08 May 2020

Earthquake preparedness of households and its predictors based on health belief model

• Masoumeh Rostami-Moez 1 , 2 ,
• Mohammad Rabiee-Yeganeh 2 ,
• Mohammadreza Shokouhi 3 ,
• Amin Dosti-Irani 1 , 4 &
• Forouzan Rezapur-Shahkolai   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5049-1109 5 , 6  

BMC Public Health volume  20 , Article number:  646 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

Earthquakes are one of the most destructive natural disasters in which many people are injured, disabled, or died. Iran has only 1 % of the world’s population, but the percentage of its earthquake-related deaths is absolutely higher. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the level of earthquake preparedness of households and its predictors using the Health Belief Model (HBM).

This observational descriptive and analytical study was conducted on 933 households in Hamadan province, located in the west of Iran, in 2019. Multi-stage cluster random sampling was used for selecting the participants. The inclusion criteria were being at least 18 years old and being able to answer the questions. A questionnaire was used for data collection including earthquake preparedness, awareness of earthquake response, predictors of earthquake preparedness based on the HBM, and demographic information. Analysis of variance, independent t-test, and a linear regression model was used.

The mean age of participants was 38.24 ± 12.85 years. The average score of earthquake preparedness was low (approximately 30%). There was a significant relationship between earthquake preparedness and gender ( P  < 0.001), homeownership ( P  < 0.001), marriage status ( P  < 0.001), education ( P  < 0.001), and previous earthquake experience ( P  < 0.001). Regarding the HBM constructs, perceived benefits ( P  < 0.001), cues to action ( P  < 0.001), and self-efficacy ( P  < 0.001) were significant predictors of earthquake preparedness.

Conclusions

Earthquake preparedness was insufficient. Besides, perceived benefits, cues to action, and self-efficacy were predictors of earthquake preparedness. These predictors can be taken into account, for designing and implementing related future interventions.

Peer Review reports

Earthquakes are one of the most dangerous natural hazards that occur suddenly and uncontrollably. They cause physical, psychological, and social damages in human societies [ 1 ]. Over the past two decades, 800 million people have been injured by natural disasters. Besides, natural disasters have caused 42 million deaths in the world [ 2 ]. Iran is always at risk of earthquakes due to its geographical location on the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt [ 3 , 4 ]. More than 70% of the major cities in Iran are vulnerable to substantial damages. The earthquakes of recent decades have not only caused the deaths of thousands but also have caused massive economic damage and destroyed many cities and villages in the world [ 5 , 6 ]. Iran has only 1 % of the world’s population, but the percentage of its earthquake-related deaths is absolutely higher [ 7 ]. The disaster management cycle has four phases including mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Preparedness is the most important phase in the disaster management cycle. Previous research in Iran has shown that the role of people as the most important and largest group has often been neglected in disaster preparedness program planning [ 8 ].

The Health Belief Model (HBM) describes the decision-making process that individuals use to adopt healthy behavior. It can be an effective framework for developing health promotion strategies [ 9 ]. Theoretically, in the HBM, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, cues to action, and self-efficacy (the beliefs of individuals in their ability to prepare for disaster) predict behavior [ 1 , 9 , 10 ].

There are some studies on earthquake preparedness that have assessed the readiness of individuals based on their knowledge and skills [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Some studies have also considered structural and non-structural safety in some cities [ 16 ] and some studies have investigated students’ readiness [ 17 , 18 ]. There are a few studies that have used behavioral change models in the disaster area [ 5 ]. The Haraoka and Inal used the Health Belief Model to develop a questionnaire for earthquake preparedness [ 1 , 11 ].

Previous studies in Iran showed that most households did not have enough readiness and had a relatively high vulnerability to possible earthquake hazards [ 19 , 20 ]. Also, one study showed that improving the socio-economic status was correlated with improving the attitude of people about disaster preparedness [ 13 ]. In DeYoung et al.ʼs study, earthquake readiness was positively correlated with risk perception, self-efficacy, and trust in information about hazards through media [ 21 ].

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Iran that examines earthquake preparedness of households, using a behavior change model. Considering the importance of earthquake preparedness of households, this study aims to asses the level of earthquake preparedness of households and its predictors based on HBM.

Study design and participants

This observational descriptive and analytical study was carried out in all counties of Hamadan province, located in the west of Iran, in 2019. These counties includes Hamadan (the capital of Hamadan province), Malayer, Tuyserkan, Nahavand, Razan, Bahar, Kabudarahang, Asadabad, and Famenin. Based on the previous study [ 19 ], the estimated sample size was 600 households. Cluster sampling was used for this study and we used the design effect of 1.5 plus 10% attrition. Subsequently, the final sample size was calculated at 1000 households. The data were collected from February to July 2019. From each county, a university graduate person was recruited and trained for data collection. The supervision and training were done by the first author. The verbal informed consent was obtained from all participants before the data gathering. The participants were first provided a description of the study and they were informed that the participation in the study was voluntary, and all study data were anonymous and confidential. Then, if they gave verbal informed consent, they would participate in the study and fill out the anonymous questionnaires. A person aged 18 or above was randomly selected from each household and answered the questions. For illiterate people, questionnaires were filled out through interviewing them. The inclusion criteria were being at least 18 years old and being able to answer the questions. The exclusion criteria were an incomplete questionnaire.

Participants have been selected by multi-stage cluster random sampling. First, stratified sampling was used for each county based on its urban and rural populations. Then, in urban and rural areas, a list of urban or rural health centers was listed and one health center was randomly selected in each county. After that, from the list of all households covered by the selected health center, one household was selected by simple random sampling and sampling started taking the clockwise direction of the selected household and continued until the required sample was collected. For selecting the sample of the urban population of Hamadan County, we selected one health center from each district by simple random sampling (in Hamadan city, there are four districts). In the next stage, from the list of covered households, one household was randomly selected and the sampling was started taking the clockwise direction until the required sample in each district was collected.

Measurements

The questionnaire used for data collection comprises four domains including 1) demographics, 2) earthquake preparedness 3) awareness on earthquake response, and 4) predictor of earthquake preparedness based on the HBM. Earthquake preparedness was response variable.

Demographics included age, sex, occupation, education, economic status, family size, number of individuals over 60 years old and under 16, earthquake experience, homeownership, marital status, and having a person with a disease that needs medication at their home.

We measured earthquake preparedness by an earthquake preparedness checklist [ 22 ]. This checklist was developed and validated by Spittal et al., in 2006. It consists of 23 questions with yes or no answers. The questions are about: having a working torch (flashlight), a first aid kit, a working battery radio, a working fire extinguisher, etc. [ 22 ]. We adapted this checklist by adding two items according to the context of the study. These two questions were: 1) do you know the necessary contact numbers such as fire station, police, and emergency so that you will be able to call them if needed?; 2) are you familiar with the phrase, “Drop, Cover, and Hold”? Also, we adapted it with some minor changes. We added “have learned first aid” to “have purchased first aid kit” statement. We added “and extra cloths and blankets” at the end of” put aside extra plastic bags and toilet paper for use as an emergency toilet” statement. We replaced “roof” with “my way” in “ensuring that the roof will probably not collapse in an earthquake. We added some examples to “take some steps at work” statement such as attending an earthquake preparedness class and having fire insurance. The content validity of the Persian checklist was tested by 10 experts. We calculated CVI and CVR equal to 0.92 and 0.95, respectively. Also, the face validity and reliability of this checklist were examined in a pilot study on 40 adults. According to their recommendations, minor revisions were made to increase the transparency and understandability of the statements. Likewise, the reliability of this checklist was measured by internal consistency (Chronbach α = 0.858). The total score of this checklist was ranging from 0 to 25 and the higher score reflects more preparedness.

The awareness on earthquake response questionnaire included seven questions with true/false answers (In an earthquake: you should get down close to the ground; you should get under a big piece of furniture such as a desk or other covers; you should hold on to a firm object until the end of the shaking; you should stand in a doorway; If you are indoors during an earthquake, you must exit the building; If you are in bed during an earthquake, you should stay there and cover your head with a pillow; next to pillars of buildings and interior wall corners are the safe areas). One point was given for each correct answer. Therefore, the total score of this domain was seven points.

The adapted questionnaire of earthquake preparedness based on the HBM was used. The original questionnaire has been established and validated by Inal et al. [ 1 ] in Turkey. The forward and backward translation method was used for translating the original questionnaire. According to the experts’ opinions, some minor changes were made to adapt the items of the questionnaire for the study population in the present study. Thereby, three questions were added to the questions of the cues to action (Radio and TV encourage me to prepare for disasters, I usually seek information about disaster preparedness from Radio and TV, and I usually obtain information about disaster preparedness from health providers). Besides, one question was added to the questions of perceived benefits (preparedness for disaster will reduce financial losses and injuries). Then, the content validity of the questionnaire was assessed by a panel of experts including 10 Health specialists in the field of health in disasters, health education, health promotion, and safety promotion (CVR = 0.92 & CVI = 0.85). Next, the face validity and reliability of the questionnaire were measured in a pilot study on 40 people over 18 years old. The reliability was calculated by using internal consistency. One question from the perceived severity (emergency and the experience of disasters does not change my life) and one question from self-efficacy (I cannot create an emergency plan with my neighbors) was excluded based on the results of Cronbach’s alpha. In Iran, neighbors don’t share their plans; therefore, it was logical to exclude these items. Finally, the questionnaire consisted of 33 questions, including perceived severity (2 questions, α = 0.709), perceived susceptibility (6 questions, α = 0.664), perceived benefits (4 questions, α = 0.758), perceived barriers (6 questions, α = 0.822), self-efficacy (7 questions, α = 0.677), cues to action (8 questions, α = 0.683), and total questions (33 questions, α = 0.809). All of the items were assessed by a 5-point Likert scale ranging from ‘completely disagree’ (one point) to ‘completely agree’ (5 points). Some items were scored reversely.

Statistical analysis

We used the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and independent t-test to determine the relationship between variables. Besides, the multivariate linear regression model was used to determine the predictors of household earthquake preparedness. The Stata 14.2 software was used to analyze the data.

In this study, 933 questionnaires were analyzed (response rate: 93.3%). The mean age of participants was 38.24 ± 12.85 years. Besides, 228 (24.44%) participants were male and 656 (70.31%) were female. About 80% of the participants did not have an academic education and had a diploma degree or less than a diploma degree. Also, 573 (61.41%) participants were homeowners (Table  1 ).

The earthquake preparedness of the participants was low. The household preparedness score was 7.5 out of 25. In other words, the average earthquake preparedness of households was approximately 30%. Besides, the self-efficacy score was 60.79 ± 0.55 and the score of cues to action was 66.57 ± 0.45 (Table  2 ).

The participants’ preparedness for the earthquake had a significant relationship with gender ( P  < 0.001), homeownership ( P  < 0.001), marital status ( P  < 0.001), and previous experience of a destructive earthquake ( P  < 0.001). Also, the mean score of earthquake preparedness was higher in those who reported moderate or good economic status. The mean difference was statistically significant by the Scheffe test ( P  < 0.001). Furthermore, the one-way ANOVA/Scheffe’s test showed that there was a significant difference between illiterate people and those who had either university education or diploma degree and similarly, a significant difference in earthquake preparedness was observed between primary education and those who had either academic education or diploma degree ( P  < 0.001) (Table  3 ).

The crude regression analysis showed that all constructs of the HBM except perceived severity were significant predictors of earthquake preparedness (P < 0.001) but after using stepwise regression, only perceived benefits ( P  < 0.006), cues to action ( P  < 0.001), and self-efficacy ( P  < 0.001), significantly predicted the earthquake preparedness (Table  4 ).

In this study, we determined the level of earthquake preparedness of households and its predictors based on HBM. The earthquake preparedness of the participants was low. The participants’ preparedness for the earthquake had a significant relationship with homeownership, education, and previous experience of a destructive earthquake. Also, perceived benefits, cues to action, and self-efficacy significantly predicted the earthquake preparedness.

Despite the strong emphasis on earthquake preparedness to prevent its damaging effects, the findings of this study showed that most people had low preparedness for earthquakes which is similar to the findings of previous studies [ 18 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]. This can be very dangerous in areas that are vulnerable to earthquakes. Earthquake preparedness is related to the previous experience of destructive earthquakes and their damaging consequences. Households that had previously experienced destructive earthquakes were more prepared than those who had not previously experienced this event, which is similar to previous finding [ 26 , 27 ]. People who live in earthquakes zones and understand the potential losses from earthquakes are more likely to be prepared in comparison to people living in other areas [ 18 ]. This could be due to recalling previous injuries as well as the fear of recurrence of similar injuries in future earthquakes. This goes back to the culture of societies that their members don’t believe that they are at risk of the occurrence of hazards and their consequences until they experience these hazards. Regarding the high frequency of earthquakes in the Hamadan province, most of the participants in this study had previous earthquake experience but they were not prepared for earthquakes. Perhaps this is because most of the recent earthquakes in Hamadan did not result in deaths and as a result, these households do not take the risk of earthquakes seriously and do not find it essential to hold earthquake preparedness [ 28 ].

Besides, education was significantly correlated with households’ earthquake preparedness, which is similar to the results of the studies by Russell et al. and Ghadiri & Nasabi [ 29 , 30 ]. One explanation can be that people with higher education are more knowledgeable, more aware of earthquakes danger, and more inclined to acquire new skills [ 28 , 31 ].

In this study, we found that the preparedness of participants has a significant relationship with homeownership. Two previous studies showed homeowners were more prepared for earthquakes than renters [ 32 , 33 ], whereas a study in Ethiopia in 2014 showed that homeownership had no relationship with disaster preparedness [ 28 ]. One of the explanations is that owners can make the necessary changes despite preparedness costs due to place attachment, but more studies are required to confirm the role of homeownership.

We adjusted for multiple possibly confounding factors in our analysis. After adjusting the model, perceived benefit, cues to action, and self-efficacy had significant predictors of earthquake preparedness. It is more possible that people’s earthquake preparedness increases when they are aware of the benefits of earthquake preparedness. Furthermore, people with high self-efficacy feel they can prepare for earthquakes [ 34 ]. On the other hand, people may find the earthquake hazardous but if they feel enough confident to reduce damages of earthquakes, they will engage in preparedness. If people perceive the benefits of a healthy behavior higher than the barriers of it, they will engage in that healthy behavior. Therefore, people may perceive earthquakes as a high threat but it can be expected that higher perceived benefits and self-efficacy among them result in higher preparedness. One possible explanation is that the perceived benefits motivate people to perform a specific behavior and adopt an action [ 10 ]. Besides, the significant association of self-efficacy with preparedness at the household level for earthquakes could be explained by the positive and strong association of cues to actions with earthquake preparedness at the household level. Self-efficacy can be improved by observational learning, role modeling, and encouragement. Self-efficacy affects one’s efforts to change risk behavior and causes the continuation of one’s safe behavior despite obstacles that may decrease motivation [ 10 ]. Moreover, cues to action associated with earthquake preparedness [ 1 ]. Cues to action mention to influences of the social environment such as family, friends, and mass media. Mass media can play a vital role in educating the public about earthquake preparedness.

This study has several limitations. Firstly, using a self-reporting approach for data gathering, and secondly, due to the low number of relevant studies on earthquake preparedness based on behavioral change models, it was less possible to compare different studies with the findings of this study. Third, it should be noted that the results of this study can be generalized in the study population and setting, but for other settings it should be done with caution. Despite these limitations, this study had some strengths, we use a theoretical framework for identifying factors that influence earthquake preparedness with a large sample size. Also, the findings of this study are useful for emergency service providers, health authorities, and policymakers in designing and implementing earthquake preparedness programs. This research is also useful for researchers as it can be used as a basis for future researches. It is recommended to design and implement interventions to improve household preparedness for an earthquake based on self-efficacy, perceived benefits, and cues to action.

Households’ earthquake preparedness was insufficient and low. Controlling the damaging consequences of earthquakes is related to the preparedness for earthquakes and can prevent its devastating effects. Perceived benefits, cues to action, and self-efficacy had a significant relationship with earthquake preparedness. The possibility of people being more prepared is increased when they are aware of and understand properly the benefits of being prepared for earthquakes and other disasters. People with high self-efficacy also feel more empowered for taking better care of themselves and their families during disasters. Cues to action would also encourage earthquake preparedness. Since health centers and TV and radio programs were the primary sources of learning about earthquakes for the people, it is recommended that broadcasting provides related programs and educates people about earthquake preparedness. The predictors that were assessed in this study can be taken into account for designing and implementing proper interventions in this field.

Availability of data and materials

The analyzed datasets during this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Health Belief Model

Confidence Interval

Analysis of Variance

Content Validity Ratio

Content Validity Index

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully thank all of the participants in this study.

This study was approved and financially supported by the Deputy of Research and Technology of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences (number: 9707174168). The funder of this study had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing the manuscript.

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Masoumeh Rostami-Moez & Mohammad Rabiee-Yeganeh

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Department of Epidemiology, School of Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

Amin Dosti-Irani

Department of Public Health, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Fahmideh Ave, Hamadan, Iran

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MRM has made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study, took responsibility for and coordinated the acquisition of data and contributed actively in the analysis of the data and the writing of the manuscript. FRS has made substantial contributions to the conception and design of the study, interpretation of the data, and writing up the manuscript. MS contributed to the design of the study and preparation of the manuscript. MRY was involved in the design of the study and the data gathering process. ADI contributed to the study design, data analysis, and interpretation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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This study was approved by the Ethical Committee of Hamadan University of Medical Sciences (approval code: IR.UMSHA.REC.1397.359). This study was an observational questionnaire study and the anonymous questionnaires were used to collect data. Therefore, the verbal informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to participation in the study and filling out the questionnaires. The form of consent was approved by the ethics committee.

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Rostami-Moez, M., Rabiee-Yeganeh, M., Shokouhi, M. et al. Earthquake preparedness of households and its predictors based on health belief model. BMC Public Health 20 , 646 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08814-2

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Received : 25 November 2019

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08814-2

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