Tsunami-Induced Overturning of Buildings in Onagawa during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake

Abstract

A simulation of the tsunami run-up during the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake was performed to investigate the mechanisms and differences in overturning failures of buildings in Onagawa, based on a two-dimensional (2-D) shallow water equation with video evidence recorded in the town as reference. The time histories of inundation depth and flow velocity predicted by the analysis enable one to develop a simplified method to estimate the hydrodynamic and buoyant forces acting on a building, as well as its factors of safety against sliding, uplift, and overturning in the time domain. This method was applied to five well-documented cases of buildings that did or did not overturn during the tsunami. Results showed that the proposed method is capable of predicting the differences in building performance qualitatively, including the likelihood, time, and direction of toppling. The results also suggested that the seaward overturning of one building is likely due to its specific topographical location with a hill closely behind that makes the tsunami load significantly less during run-up than during backwash.