Prepared by Ji Su Lee and Sahar Derakshan
September 25, 2017 – “Following the Puebla Earthquake which hit Central Mexico on September 19, 2017, RMS has made preliminary estimates of losses. Economic shake losses will be between US$4 billion and $8 billion. This is based on current building damage information from the Mexican authorities. RMS has also analyzed data on ground motion, and examined how property exposures are distributed across the region. Because of low insurance penetration rates across Mexico, particularly in residential lines, RMS expects that insured losses will not exceed $1.2 billion. This estimate accounts for shake-only insured losses to structures, contents and business interruption including the effects of liquefaction and landsliding. Post-event loss amplification is not expected to be a significant factor in these losses”. (Read more)
Ji Su Lee and Sahar Derakhshan will be curating the Social Impact topic of EERI’s Puebla, Mexico earthquake Clearinghouse. Ji Su is a structural/risk analyst with Arup’s Advanced Technology + Research team and is based in San Francisco; Sahar is a Research Associate at the Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute (HVRI) at the University of South Carolina with backgrounds in public policy and structural engineering.
