Tsunami Damage Assessment on Bridge Structures Subjected to the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake Tsunami

Abstract

We assess tsunami damage on bridge structures due to the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku earthquake tsunami by analyzing satellite images offered by Google Earth. We obtain the inundation heights at damaged bridges due to the tsunamis by carrying out tsunami flow simulations based on shallow water theory, which are discretized by using the finite difference method with a staggered leap-flog scheme. The dependence of distances of wash-away decks and wash-away areas of abutments upon tsunami inundation heights are revealed.