ENHANCED VERTICAL EVACUATION APPLICATION WITH GEOMATIC TOOLS FOR TSUNAMIS IN SALINAS, ECUADOR

Abstract

Tsunami hazards are more than evident in the Pacific coast of Ecuador, but especially on its westernmost Peninsula called Salinas. As the potential impact time is relatively short for the public to reach natural high ground or at least leave the tsunami inundation area, a different approach to rescue lives has been applied with geomatic tools. The buildings inside the tsunami hazard zone have been first evaluated for their seismic resistance. Those buildings, which have been proven to withstand a seismic event, have been chosen to serve as elevated safe zones for a subsequent vertical tsunami evacuation. The used geographic tools allowed reducing time spans between initial evacuation points towards safe zones inside the tsunami inundation areas. The results of this study demonstrate the efficiency of vertical tsunami evacuation in a highly populated and visited touristic area in coastal Ecuador, as in Salinas appears a relatively high percentage of the population to far from shelters or elevated safe zones during a short-time impact of a tsunami.

Keywords

• Tsunami
• Seismic resistant buildings
• Numerical modeling
• Vertical Evacuation
• Ecuador