Journal of Engineering and Architecture

Urban Evacuation Tsunamis: Guidelines for Urban Design
Leonel Ramos Santibáñez

Abstract
Earthquakes and tsunamis are the main natural agents of urban change and directly affect the sustainable development of cities. Buildings must be becoming stronger to withstand the seismic energy released during an earthquake and coastal cities at risk of tsunami should be better prepared to facilitate the process of evacuation of people at high and safe areas in the shortest time possible before the arrival of the first waves.During SATREPS / JICA 2012-15 "Tsunami Reserch Project", was worked with Dr. Hitomi Murakami of Japan, in the application of surveys in Chilean cities affected by earthquakes and tsunamis of 2010 and 2014 and Japanese cities affected by the earthquake and Tohoku tsunami of 2011with the aim to understand the behavior of the population during a tsunami evacuation and visualize the response of urban structures, especially evacuation routes and safe areas.Coastal cities should facilitate processes are tsunami evacuation as fast, safe and efficient, so that the population is made shelter in the shortest possible time previously established locations with the minimum equipment to support the emergency.These guidelines proposes to incorporate urban design in planning coastal cities values of urban resilience to earthquakes and tsunamis and minimum standards to ensure that future threats, the population will be safer and better prepared to face a new urban tsunami evacuation; this is one of the main tasks to prevent future disasters.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/jea.v4n2a10