EVALUATION OF EARTHQUAKE INJURIES IN OFFICE BUILDINGS

Abstract

A procedure for evaluating the number of injuries in an office room is presented. The procedure is based on observations that most of injuries at indoor are caused by overturning of furniture. Using the procedure combined with the GIS data of the area of interest, the number of injuries in office buildings in the central part of Kawasaki city, Japan is evaluated for a hypothetical earthquake. The results show that earthquake injuries in urban office environment could be enormous and should be considered in disaster mitigaion planning.