Selection of Ship Evacuation Area to Construct Tsunami Emergency Action Plan

Abstract

When a tsunami occurs and starts to propagate towards coastal region, a tsunami warning is issued. Then, the captain of ship in a port is advised to make a decision in accordance with the situation. If a captain does not take his ship out of port, more damage to the infrastructures of a port, other ship and even itself is likely. To reduce additional damages, tsunami action plan is essential to lead ships out of a port. However, exact procedures to evacuate are not provided in the evacuation action plan. In this study, how to select a ship evacuation area outside of a port will be discussed based on wave height, tsunami-induced currents and the behavior of ships. To illuminate the selection criteria to locate a safe zone, numerical simulation of the 2011 East Japan Tsunami is performed using a dispersion corrected finite difference scheme with the time-dependent fault parameters. Moreover, Masan and Jinhae bays are selected as sample cases in order to establish the base of ship evacuation action plan in Korea.