Individual Disaster Assistance For Socially Vulnerable People: Lessons Learned From the Pohang Earthquake in the Republic of Korea

The Republic of Korea has been considered to be relatively safe from earthquake hazards because of the geological location of the Korean Peninsula, which has a low level of intraplate seismic activity. However, an earthquake with a moment magnitude of 5.4 struck the city of Pohang on November 15, 20...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Risk analysis 2020-11, Vol.40 (11), p.2373-2389
Main Authors: Jeong, Seunghoo, Kim, Byeong Je, Lee, Young‐Joo, Chung, Ji‐Bum, Sim, Sung‐Han
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Casualties
Conceptual models
Disasters
Earthquake damage
Earthquakes
Geological hazards
Individual disaster assistance
Low level
Mathematical models
Multivariate statistical analysis
PLS‐SEM
Pohang earthquake
Republic of Korea
Risk assessment
Seismic activity
Seismic hazard
Statistical models
Victims
Vulnerability
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Republic of Korea has been considered to be relatively safe from earthquake hazards because of the geological location of the Korean Peninsula, which has a low level of intraplate seismic activity. However, an earthquake with a moment magnitude of 5.4 struck the city of Pohang on November 15, 2017, causing 90 casualties and 52 million USD in property losses. During the recovery process after the earthquake, the Korean government provided individual disaster assistance to victims who reported their damages. However, the government disaster assistance could have been unfairly distributed among the socially vulnerable victims who essentially relied on that assistance. This study identifies whether the government disaster assistance was fairly distributed to socially vulnerable victims using a statistical model based on the data from the Pohang earthquake that occurred in 2017 in Korea. A conceptual model was constructed using a structural equation model (SEM) of three factors—social vulnerability, physical vulnerability, and the amount paid out in individual disaster assistance. Furthermore, interviews with and a survey of the victims were conducted to verify the problems identified by the conceptual model. This study found that socially vulnerable victims were less likely to take advantage of the government disaster assistance program.
ISSN:0272-4332
1539-6924
DOI:10.1111/risa.13554