Vulnerability analysis in earthquake loss estimate

The abodes in Costa Rica have almost the same vulnerability as the old civi l houses in China, which represent the vulnerability in worst cases. On the other hand, the high quality buildings in Middle East have the same vulner ability as the reinforced concrete buildings in China due to employing the state-of-art-design and construction techniques, which represent the vulner ability of the best cases. The macroeconomic vulnerability is defined as th e ratio of physical economic loss caused by earthquake to the Gross Domesti c Product (GDP) within a given area. Since the total macroscopic loss is th e sum of losses of different types of buildings and facilities, the macroec onomic vulnerability must be greater than that of best cases while less tha n that of worst cases. In the present paper, the implications of macroecono mic vulnerability to earthquake loss estimate are discussed.