Abstract ---For earthquake hazard prediction, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the United States developed the HAZUS 97, an earthquake hazard assessment and decision support system, under the National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP). The HAZUS 97 was offered to local governments and private organizations to make use of the latest technology of hazard mitigation. The Japanese National Land Agency also developed a system called the “Earthquake Disaster Simulation and Support Tool,” which would predict the distribution of the intensity of earthquake shaking and the degree of resulting damage with the input of earthquake source parameters. The tool was used for the purpose of hazard mitigation and public awareness. In order to establish a local earthquake disaster decision support system, the National Science and Technology Program for Hazard Mitigation (NAPHM), the National Science Council (NSC), and the Department of Industrial Technology of the Ministry of Economic Affairs contracted the Risk Management Solutions, Inc. to modify the HAZUS and built the Haz-Taiwan system. This new system will use local databases for the earthquake damage estimation in Taiwan. However, the local databases (geology, human geography, buildings, lifelines, and census data) are not complete. Currently, the NAPHM is furthering the development of the Haz-Taiwan system, and the system is not yet being delivered to the local governments.
Before the Haz-Taiwan system could be used by local governments, in order to provide the planning guidance to local governments for emergency shelters and emergency response, this study developed a simple earthquake hazard estimation system. It would provide damage estimation methods for the assessment of building damage, casualties, post-earthquake fires, and shelter needs for the purpose of disaster preparedness and earthquake hazard simulation by the local governments. In this study, the attenuation relationship proposed by the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering was used. The damage data collected after the 921 Ji-Ji earthquake along with the relevant researches were employed to develop the damage estimation methodology of building collapses, casualties, post-earthquake fires, and shelter needs. This methodology could be used as the basis of earthquake damage estimation and the drafting of relevant disaster mitigation plans by the central and local governments.