Impact of economic development levels on the mortality rates of Asian earthquakes

Abstract Buildings in areas with high economic development levels have strong earthquake resistance, and the mortality rate caused by earthquakes is low. From 1990 to 2015, a total of 387 earthquakes (excluding the earthquakes that caused the tsunami) occurred in Asia. The paper took Asian countries as an example to quantitatively estimate the impact of economic development on the mortality of earthquakes. Based on spatial statistics and regression analysis, the paper obtained the mortality rate of every historical earthquake and drew the magnitude-mortality rate curves for three groups at different economic levels, namely, Group I (per capita GDP range of $12,500-$45,000), Group II (per capita GDP range of $1,700-$12,500), and Group III (per capita GDP range of $550-$1,700). With a M 6 earthquake, the mortality rate of Group I, II and III was 0.0002‰, 0.0071‰ and 0.0871‰ respectively. However, due to the powerful destructiveness of giant earthquakes, as the magnitude of the earthquakes increases, the differences among the three groups decrease. Furthermore, if the economic development of Asian countries maintains its pace of the past 20 years, the vulnerability of Groups II and III will reach the current level of Group I in the year of 2046. Then if earthquakes that have occurred in the past occur again, the death toll will be reduced from 399,509 to 107,112. In general, as the GDP per capita doubles, the earthquake mortality rate will drop by 19%–25%, and the disaster-reduction goals proposed by the Sendai Framework can be achieved.