Identifying Evacuees' Demand of Tsunami Shelters using Agent Based Simulation

Amongst the lessons learned in tsunami events such as the 2004 Indian Ocean and 2011 Great Tohoku Japan earthquake is that sometimes nature exceeds structural countermeasures like seawalls, breakwaters or tsunami gates. In such situations it is a challenging task for people in plain areas to find sheltering places. The vertical evacuation to multistory buildings is one alternative to provide areas for sheltering in a complex environment of evacuation. However, if the spatial distribution and the available capacity of these structures are not well displayed, conditions of evacuee over-demand or under-demand might be observed in several structures. In this study, we present the integration of the tsunami numerical modeling and the agent based simulation of evacuation as the method to estimate the sheltering demand of evacuees in an emergent behavior approach. The case study is set in La Punta district in Peru. Here, we used in the tsunami simulation a seismic source of slip distribution model (Pulido et.al. ,2011; Chlieh et.al, 2011) for a possible future tsunami scenario in the central Andes. We modeled three alternatives of evacuation. First, the horizontal evacuation scenario was analyzed to support the necessity of the sheltering-in-place option for the district. Second, the vertical evacuation scenario and third, the combination of vertical and horizontal evacuation scenarios of pedestrians and vehicles were conducted. In the last two alternatives, the demand of evacuees were measured at each official tsunami evacuation building and compared to the sheltering capacity of the structure. Results showed that out of twenty tsunami evacuation buildings, thirteen resulted with over-demands and seven were still with available space. Also it is confirmed that in this case the horizontal evacuation might lead to a high number of casualties due to the traffic congestion at the neck of the district. Finally the vertical evacuation would be a suitable solution for this area; however the spatial location of shelters complicates the evacuation process. Future plan to provide more areas spatially well-located and with adequate capacities should be part of the agenda of mitigation and preparedness in the district.