Seismic risk assessment for the residential buildings of the major three cities in Colombia: Bogotá,Medellín,and Cali

Abstract

This study presents a seismic risk assessment and a set of earthquake scenarios for the residential building stock of the three largest metropolitan centers of Colombia: Bogotá, Medellín and Cali (with 8.0, 2.5, and 2.4 million inhabitants, respectively). A uniform methodology was followed for the development of the seismic hazard, vulnerability, and exposure models, thus allowing a direct comparison between the seismic risk of the different cities. Risk metrics such as exceedance probability curves and average annual losses were computed for each city. The earthquake scenarios were selected considering events whose direct economic impact is similar to the aggregated loss for a probability of exceedance of 10% in 50 years. Results show a higher mean aggregate loss ratio for Cali and similar mean aggregate loss ratios for Bogotá and Medellín. All of the models used in this study are openly accessible, enabling risk modelers, engineers, and stakeholders to explore them for disaster risk management.