Seismic damage scenarios for Mayotte: a tool for disaster management

• Published in: Comptes rendus. Geoscience Vol. 354; no. S2; pp. 343 - 359
• Main Authors: Taillefer, Nicolas, Bertil, Didier, Negulescu, Caterina, Roullé, Agathe, Iasio, Christian, Auclair, Samuel, Quique, Robin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Paris Académie des Sciences. Institut de France 01-01-2022; Académie des sciences (Paris); Académie des sciences
• Subjects: Buildings; Damage scenarios; Datasets; Decision making; Disaster management; Disaster risk; Earth Sciences; Earthquakes; Emergency preparedness; Environmental risk; Management of crises; Mayotte; Rapid loss assessment; Risk assessment; Sciences of the Universe; Seismic activity; Seismic surveys; Simulation; Site amplification; Volcanoes; Vulnerability; Damage scenarios; Mayotte Damage scenarios Vulnerability Site amplification Earthquakes Rapid loss assessment; Earthquakes; Mayotte; Vulnerability; Rapid loss assessment; Site amplification
• ISSN: 1778-7025; 1631-0713; 1778-7025
• DOI: 10.5802/crgeos.120

A new marine volcano is erupting offshore Mayotte since May 2018, generating numerous earthquakes. The population felt many of them and the stronger shaking of the ongoing sequence caused slight damage to buildings. Historical records also confirm that damaging earthquakes had occurred in the past in this region. Seismic damage scenarios are a key tool for supporting the decision-making process, the preparedness, and for designing appropriate emergency responses. This paper provides the outcomes of a work consisting in improving the seismic risk assessment as a part of disaster risk governance and exposes the scientific background of this workflow. It illustrates its use with two earthquakes. Related post-seismic surveys provide observations that are useful to check the validity of the reference dataset. The paper also discusses the main characteristics of the rapid loss assessment tool that has been developed to provide operational information for crisis management.