The Disaster Analytics Lab for Society is involved in several exciting sessions at this year’s Understanding Risk 2020 forum. See details below and register for the event (it’s free!). Many exciting sessions. Forming radical collaborations to address climate and disaster risk: The Understanding Risk Field Lab https://www.ur2020.org/agenda/session/440102 Thursday 3 Dec 3-3:55 UTC (11-11:55 SG time)…
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This week the Disaster Analytics for Society Lab team was in Nepal for the 3rd workshop on the Informatics for Equitable Recovery (IER) project. One purpose of our study is to understand the complexities of disaster impact and the process of recovery, identify key obstacles to recovery, and try to define what disaster recovery even…
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Updating a post I had written 2 years ago. Still relevant. Today marks the 9th year since the Southern part of Haiti was shook by a devastating 7.0M earthquake. The earthquake claimed tens of thousands of lives (estimates range from 100,000-316,000), rendered millions homeless and threw the country in tremendous chaos. I remember exactly where…
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Last month I spent a week in Nepal setting up an exciting project with collaborators at Kathmandu Living Labs. The project is funded through a “Collaborative Data Innovations for Sustainable Development” award by the World Bank and Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Our proposal focused on better understanding the ways in which disaster impact…
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Before the Great San Francisco Bay Area Earthquake Today is the 112th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, an event that changed virtually every aspect of the city. For decades following, people talked about the time before the earthquake and the time after it. It was the most important reference for the entire history…
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There is no such thing as a natural disaster, only natural hazard. That’s because the impact of hurricanes, earthquakes and other hazards is determined not by the size and intensity of such events, but by the extent to witch our built environment is exposed and vulnerable to them. What does it mean when it comes…
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On Feb 20th 1835, a large earthquake (estimated M8.1-8.2) shook the cities of Concepción and Talcuahano in Chile, and generated a large tsunami which battered the Chilean coastline. On that day, Charles Darwin was on shore near Valdivia, 200 miles south of Concepción. His journal presents a fascinating account of the earthquake and its aftermath. I…
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Today marks the 7th year since the Southern part of Haiti was shook by a devastating 7.0M earthquake. The earthquake claimed tens of thousands of lives (estimates range from 100,000-316,000), rendered millions homeless and threw the country in tremendous chaos. New Yorkers (and many others) can tell you exactly where they were when the Twin…
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110 years ago today (April 18th 1906), the San Francisco Bay Area shook violently from the magnitude 7.8 rupture of the San Andreas fault. The shaking destroyed many buildings and sparked a fire that would sweep through and burn down most of the city. The earthquake and three days of fires caused an estimated 3,000…
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In a previous post I shared some of my research on the remaining earthquake risk of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. The main conclusion was that the earthquake which occurred in 2010 can not reasonably be assumed to be followed by a long period of earthquake tranquility. Geological and paleoseismic evidence suggests that the expected “Port-au-Prince earthquake,” (as opposed to the…
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