Green earthquake alert Bolivia(M=6.6) potentially affecting 139000 people.

GDACS impact assessment

The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System provides near real-time alerts about natural disasters around the world and tools to facilitate response coordination, including media monitoring, map catalogues and Virtual On-Site Operations Coordination Centre.

Summary

On 11/22/2011 6:48:17 PM UTC an earthquake of magnitude 6.6 and depth 556.7km has struck an sparsely populated area in the El Beni Province (population: 0.2 million) in Bolivia. GDACS estimates the likelihood for need of international humanitarian intervention to be low (Green alert).

This earthquake can have a low humanitarian impact since the affected region is sparsely populated and has medium resilience for natural disasters.

The nearest populated places are Isla Azul (16km), Cochabamba (17km), El Carmen (18km). It is a flat region with a maximum altitude of 262 m.

Humanitarian Impact
Population resilience
Tsunami probability
Landslide probability
Nuclear radiation probability

Caution: this information is based on risk models. Whether international humanitarian aid is needed must be decided by an expert.

This report was automatically updated by a computer on: 11/23/2011 3:35:30 AM UTC (8 hours 47 minutes after the event)

Explanation of alert calculation: Show

The impact model combines magnitude (M), population within 100km (P) and vulnerability/resilience ECHO average score (V) using the formula:
alertscore = max(M-4.5,0) * log10(max(P / 80000,0))^ 0.5 * max(V,0.5) ^ 1.5 / 3
The weighted product of magnitude (6.6), population (139239) and vulnerability (1.41) results in an alertscore of 0.574961159602533
Depth correction: this earthquake occurred more than 300km deep. The alertscore is set to 0.
Then alert is Red if alertscore>2, Orange if alertscore>1 and Green if alertscore

Population Density near epicenter (people/km²). Image area: 6x4 decimal degrees (approx. 650x450km2).

Earthquake epicentre: best estimate previous estimates: eq_icon

Earthquake Event

Geological map

Green earthquake alert Bolivia(M=6.6) potentially affecting 139000 people." />

Characteristics for this report

Information source	World Data Centre for Seismology, Denver (NEIC) Link to source event report (usc0006w6e) PAGER report (c0006w6e)
Magnitude	6.6 M
Depth	556.7 km
Location	Geographic coordinates (latitude/longitude): -15.3591, -65.1254 Bolivia , El Beni Province (population: 264208). Seismic region: Beni. The earthquake happened in Bolivia , El Beni Province (population: 264208). . The nearest populated places are Isla Azul (16km), Cochabamba (17km), El Carmen (18km). It is a flat region with a maximum altitude of 262 m.
Time	Green earthquake alert Bolivia(M=6.6) potentially affecting 139000 people." /> 11/22/2011 6:48:17 PM (UTC, Universal Standard Time) 11/22/2011 2:27:47 PM (Estimated local solar time) Tue, 11/22/2011 19:48 CET (Brussels, Paris, Rome) Tue, 11/22/2011 13:48 EST (New York, Washington) Tue, 11/22/2011 10:48 PST (San Francisco, Los Angeles) Wed, 11/23/2011 02:48 AWST (Australian Western Standard Time)

Previous reports for this earthquake.

Earthquake report	Event Date/Time	Lat/Lon	Magnitude	Depth (km)	Source	Publication Date/Time	Delay
Green earthquake alert Bolivia(M=6.6) potentially affecting 139000 people." /> 113310	11/22/2011 6:48:16 PM UTC	-15.47, -65.176	6.7	553	PTWC (pt11326000)	11/22/2011 6:59:37 PM UTC	11min
113312	11/22/2011 6:48:15 PM UTC	-15.3448, -65.1099	6.2	533.3	NEIC (usc0006w6e)	11/22/2011 7:10:53 PM UTC	22min
113324	11/22/2011 6:48:17 PM UTC	-15.3591, -65.1254	6.6	556.7	NEIC (usc0006w6e)	11/23/2011 3:35:30 AM UTC	527min

Earthquake Impact Details

Potentially affected People

The population in the area of this earthquake if 1 people/km?. (Data source).

The earthquake occurred at 14h local time. At this time a day, more people are at work and therefore more vulnerable to collapsing office buildings. During traffic hours, people can be affected by collapsing bridges and other road infrastructure.

Population Data
Radius (km)	Population	Density (people/km?)
1	1	1
2	14	1
5	65	0
10	251	0
20	970	0
50	8978	1
100	139239	4
200	356286	2

Damage

The affected region has low level of urban area (0%) and a high level of cultivated area (7.4%). In urban areas more damage can be expected than in cultivated or natural areas. (Data source)

Radius (km)	urban areas	cultivated areas	other
200	0%	7.46%	92.53%
100	0%	7.12%	92.87%
50	0%	4.91%	95.08%
10	0%	0.26%	99.73%

Resilience and Vulnerability

Resilience is the capacity of the population to cope with a hazard. Since much of investments in earthquake preparedness and available funds for quick response is related to household income, the GDP per capita can be used as a rough indicator of resilience.

Bolivia has a GDP per capita of 955 PPP$ (Parity Purchasing Power Dollar, about 1 Euro) and is therefore part of the medium level income countries. Therefore, the earthquake happened in an area of medium resilience.

Based on the combination of 9 indicators, ECHO attributes Bolivia a medium vulnerability.

ECHO Intervention Priority Ranking for Bolivia

Overall situation
Human Development
Human Poverty
Exposure to Major Disasters
Natural Disasters
Conflicts
Humanitarian effects of population movement
Refugees and IDPs
Health of children under five
Undernourishment
Mortality rates
Other vulnerability factors
Access to health care
Prevalence of HIV, TBC and malaria
Gender-specific Human Development
Gini Index
Source ECHO Key: Bad - Medium - Good - No data

Exposure

Both conditions for survival and conditions for delivering aid strongly depend on the current weather and temperature. The following graphs show the current and forecast weather.

Current weather conditions and forecasts at earthquake location (lat: -15.3591 - long: -65.1254) (Data source).

Cloud cover chart currently not available. Try to refresh page.

More detailed observations at closest weather station (Jorge Henrich Arauz): WeatherByWeb - NOAA

Probability of Secondary effects

Landslides: The maximum slope in the area of the earthquake is 2.553% and the maximum altitude is 262 m. Since this is a low slope, the risk of earthquake induced landslides is low. Note, however, that the slope data is not reliable on a local scale, while landslides depend very much on local topography, soil and meteorological conditions. More...

Critical infrastructure

The following critical infrastructure is nearby and could be affected by the earthquake:

Nuclear power plants: There are no nuclear facilities nearby the epicenter.
Hydrodams: There are no hydrodam facilities nearby the epicenter.

The distance to nuclear installations is evaluated based on a 1999 UN dataset containing the location of nuclear plants in the world. If plants are near and the earthquake magnitude is above 6.5, the alert is set to orange. Note that the location of plants is approximate with errors of up to 100km.

Getting there and away

The nearest civilian airport (Jorge Henrich Arauz) is at 64km from the epicenter. Other airports are: Chimore (181km), San Ignacio De Moxos (70km), Capitan German Quiroga Guardia (179km), Capitan German Quiroga G (195km), Jorge Henrich Arauz (64km), Santa Ana Yacuma (184km), Santa Ana Del Yacuma (181km)

Ports nearby are: [None]

Disclaimer

While we try everything to ensure accuracy, this information is purely indicative and should not be used for any decision making without alternate sources of information. The JRC is not responsible for any damage or loss resulting from the use of the information presented on this website.

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