Earthquake ground motion and human behavior: Using DYFI data to assess behavioral response to earthquakes

Abstract

Human behavioral response to ground motion produced by earthquakes has been the subject of response readiness campaigns like the Great ShakeOut, conventional wisdom regarding how people respond as portrayed in news media, a small but growing social science literature and, in earlier versions of the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale, one component of the assignment of intensities to earthquakes. This study drew on the extensive USGS “Did you feel it?” (DYFI) database to explore human behavioral response in 12 earthquakes that occurred between 2005 and 2018 in 8 countries. These earthquakes varied from moderate in magnitude to very large and destructive events. Some occurred in developed nations with extensive earthquake preparedness campaigns and advanced building codes and others in developing nations with almost no attention to the hazards posed by earthquakes and no seismic provisions in building codes. Our objective was to describe and analyze the behaviors reported by those who navigated to the DYFI site and reported how they responded.