DESIGN LOAD EVALUATION FOR TSUNAMI SHELTERS BASED ON DAMAGE OBSERVATIONS AFTER INDIAN OCEAN TSUNAMI DISASTER DUE TO THE 2004 SUMATRA EARTHQUAKE

Abstract

Since great earthquakes significantly affecting coastal regions are expected to occur in the near future in Japan, tsunami shelters are of highest priority to mitigate casualties by earthquake-induced killer waves. Although the design guidelines recently developed by a task committee under the Japanese Cabinet Office propose design loads for practical shelter design, they are fundamentally based on laboratory tests but not on damage observations. In this report, structures that experienced the Indian Ocean tsunami caused by the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake were surveyed, and the relationship between their damage, strengths, and tsunami height is quantitatively investigated to examine the design load proposed in the guidelines.