Vulnerability of rural houses to cyclonic wind

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a method for evaluating vulnerability of rural houses to cyclonic wind for countries where systematic documentation and analysis of damage data are inadequate. The effects of important parameters such as the ratio of non-engineered to semi-engineered houses, types of houses like old, new, etc. wind speed and damage states on the overall probability of failure are investigated. Design/methodology/approach: A systematic procedure is presented for estimating the vulnerability of a cluster of rural houses to cyclones by performing a fragility analysis for different predefined damage states. The method is illustrated with the help of an example in which a hundred rural houses are considered in a region. Findings: The results of the study show that the ratio (n s) has significant effect on the probability of failure for the middle range of the percentile value. The number of different types of houses does not have significant effect on the probability of failure and for high value of n s, a large number of houses have nearly the same probability of failure. Originality/value: The method is useful in finding an initial estimate of the overall probability of failure of a cluster of houses for different damage states and accordingly, in deciding the optimal allocation of resources for cyclone disaster mitigation.