A Quick Earthquake Disaster Estimation System with Fast Urban Earthquake Simulation and Interactive Visualization

Abstract In the immediate aftermath of an earthquake, quick estimation of damage to city structures can facilitate prompt, effective post disaster measures. Physics based urban earthquake simulations, using measured ground motions as input, are a possible means of obtaining reasonable estimates. The difficulty of such estimation lies in carrying out the simulation and arriving at a thorough understanding of large scale time series results in a limited amount of time. We developed an estimation system based on fast urban earthquake disaster simulation, together with an interactive visualization method suitable for GPU workstations. Using this system, an urban area with more than 100,000 structures can be analyzed within an hour and visualized interactively.