Dagupan gets quake assessment software

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines – The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) is sharing its software called Rapid Earthquake Damage Assessment Systems (REDAS) that can simulate different earthquake scenarios in this city that was once devastated by a powerful temblor in 1990.

Leonila Bautista, associate scientist of Phivolcs-Department of Science and Technology (DOST), yesterday told local journalists: “If we want to simulate the 1990 earthquake or any earthquake in particular, then we can determine where is the high intensity (whether it’s) 8 or 9, and we are able to determine areas that can undergo liquefaction like what happened in Dagupan in 1990, where buildings sank and tilted. We can estimate areas which can experience landslide, tsunami, how many minutes, how high, we can do this in the software.”

She said they are also teaching the city how to build its own exposure data based on the location and type of buildings, how many people are living in those buildings, and what is the value of those buildings, among others.

“And if we have those information, we are able to compute for the risks, we know how many percent will be damaged, the height and age of the buildings, how many will die, how many will be injured, how much is the economic loss to the city. We can do that with this software,” she added.

Bautista said they have provided training to 52 out of 81 provinces. It’s the second time for Dagupan, as the city “is a special case because of its soft soil and one has to really adhere to the building code because you have the threat of liquefaction,” she added.

Phivolcs officials are here for five-day training on basic map reading, basic REDAS features, plotting base maps and administrative boundaries, hydro-meteorological hazards, earthquake and volcanic hazards, mainstreaming hazard assessment into disaster risk reduction, prepare ground-shaking map for specific earthquakes, REDAS as a risk assessment tool, and data management.

REDAS is a software developed by Phivolcs to produce seismic hazard and risk maps minutes after the occurrence of a potentially damaging earthquake.

The Phivolcs will provide the REDAS software to the city at no cost. The city government shall use it as a tool for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into local development, including disaster risk management, and land use and development planning.

Each participant is asked to sign a corresponding end-user license agreement for each REDAS copy installed at individual computers.

Bautista said there is a possibility that the 1990 earthquake that shook Dagupan would be repeated. “You are not strange to earthquake phenomenon,” she said.

She urged the people not to be complacent about earthquake although it does not happen often like a typhoon.

Bautista said preparations must be science-based with facts backing up the purchase of equipment, training, and information campaign.

“When we tell the people that there would be a tsunami, we must tell them how many minutes from the shaking, how high, we just don’t invent (by saying) it’s three meters but we tell them what is the computation so they can prepare,” she said.

On July 16, 1990, about 90 buildings were damaged and about 20 collapsed when a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck this city. Some structures sustained damage because liquefaction caused buildings to sink as much as one meter.

The earthquake caused a decrease in the elevation of the city and several areas were flooded. It left 17 people dead and 47 injured. Most injuries were sustained during stampedes at a university building and a theater.