Ecuador Coast High Risk of Tsunamis, case study of San Vicente

SCIENCE OF TSUNAMI HAZARDS Journal of Tsunami Society InternationaL
Fabian Rodriguez, Mario Cruz D ́Howitt, Theofilos Toulkeridis*, Rodolfo Salazar,
Gioconda Elizabeth Ramos Romero, Veleria Alejandra Recalde Moya and Oswaldo
Padilla

THE ECONOMIC EVALUATION AND SIGNIFICANCE OF AN EARLY RELOCATION VERSUS COMPLETE DESTRUCTION BY A POTENTIAL TSUNAMI OF A COASTAL CITY IN ECUADOR

GEODYNAMIC SETTING AND PROBABILITY OF TSUNAMIS
The coastal part of continental Ecuador is highly vulnerable for tsunami hazards as shown in the past two centuries. In order to avoid future devastating destructions in a given part in the coastline, we have estimated the economic effects of a potential future tsunami for one small Pacific town in Ecuador in order to analyze such potential cost of damages and compare it with a proposed resettlement value of the entire town. In past, most of the known resettlement projects have been realized as result of a natural disaster or a planning infrastructure such as hydro – electrical plants. Yet, in this study, we have considered to propose to policy makers and other authorities to take into account that a resettlement plan should be realized prior an impact by one the most deadly natural hazard. The results include four different scenarios of economic losses as a result of a potential tsunami, using human losses as the only variable that vary
. Potential economic losses vary from 441 US$ up to 620 US$ millions, when compared to a potential resettlement and associated costs based on the four scenarios. The B/C ratio is favorable to town resettlement as Government’s preventing policy favoring an intelligent reduction and prevention of vulnerability and loss of human life.

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IF YOU ARE THINKING OF MOVING TO ECUADOR THIS BOOK COVERS SAFETY, SECURITY, AND CULTURAL ISSUES
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Due to its active geodynamics the Ecuadorian continental platform similar to almost all other
countries along the Pacific Rim is a frequent target of tsunami impacts (Gusiakov, 2005;
Pararas Carayannis, 2012).

From the known record, the Ecuadorian shoreline has witnessed a dozen times impacts of
tsunamis by mainly local origins in the last two centuries with various intensities one being
of up to 8.8 Mw in 1906 (Rudolph and Szirtes, 1911; Kelleher, 1972;
Beck and Ruff, 1984; Kanamori and McNally, 1982; Swenson and Beck, 1996 Pararas Carayannis, 2012 ), while evidences of paleo tsunami deposits are scarce (Chunga and Toulkeridis, 2014). Other prominent examples of tsunamis along the Ecuador Colombia subduction zone include tsunamis in 1942 (Mw=7 8), 1958 (Mw = 7 7) and 1979 (Mw = 8 2) within the 600 km long rupture area of the great 1906 event (Collot et al., 2004). While the 1906 event caused the death of up to 1500 persons in Ecuador and Colombia with an unknown financial damage to the existing infrastructure, the 1979 tsunami killed in Colombia at least 807 persons and destroyed approximately 10,000 homes, knocking out electric power and telep phone lines (Pararas Carayannis, 1980)

The evaluation of the last marine quakes, which generated tsunamis, suggests that the
probability of a major or great earthquake in this margin region is enormous, especially as there must be substantial strain accumulation in this region (Pararas-
Carayannis, 2012). Additionally, given into consideration that the last earthquake in 1979 did not release the amount of energy as the 1906 event, there is a high probability in the near future, that an earthquake within the Ecuadorian-Colombian trench may generate a tsunami of similar magnitude to that of 1906, which might be even more destructive than the one in the past if it occurs near high tide (
Pararas – Carayannis, 2012). The potential of high losses and damage i
s given by the fact that the infrastructure of the fishing, tourism and other industries and the movement to live along the beaches, have been highly developed within the last decades along the Ecuadorian coasts. Based on historic know tsunamis in Ecuador of the last two centuries, the probability of a strike in 2015
is of about 87%.

Study of San Vicente in Manabí

Province is exclusively composed by quaternary sediments of the so called Canoa formation (
Bianucci et al., 1997 ) and is situated along the Ecuador – Colombia subduction zone, exactly east of the W E striking Carnegie Ridge at a latitude
of 0.35ºS (Fig. 1). This region is being highly vulnerable to tsunamis, flooding, landslides and mud flows………….

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CONCLUSION
Resettlement usually oc
curs after a disaster strikes, but in terms of human life, this should not be the case for the regular public policy. That results, that in this study for the town of San Vicente in western Manabi Province, we were able to present how using well – known evaluation tools such
as BCA, SIG and other analysis tools can help policy makers to prevent future disastrous results by all means in order to accomplish an intelligent prevention and reduction of vulnerabilities and losses of life. Read Full Study PDF

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