Characteristics of building fragility curves for seismic and non-seismic tsunamis: case studies of the 2018 Sunda Strait, 2018 Sulawesi–Palu, and 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamis

Indonesia has experienced several tsunamis triggered by seismic and non-seismic (i.e., landslides) sources. These events damaged or destroyed coastal buildings and infrastructure and caused considerable loss of life. Based on the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) guidelines, this study assesses the empirical tsunami fragility to the buildings inventory of the 2018 Sunda Strait, 2018 Sulawesi–Palu, and 2004 Indian Ocean (Khao Lak–Phuket, Thailand) tsunamis. Fragility curves represent the impact of tsunami characteristics on structural components and express the likelihood of a structure reaching or exceeding a damage state in response to a tsunami intensity measure. The Sunda Strait and Sulawesi–Palu tsunamis are uncommon events still poorly understood compared to the Indian Ocean tsunami (IOT), and their post-tsunami databases include only flow depth values. Using the TUNAMI two-layer model, we thus reproduce the flow depth, the flow velocity, and the hydrodynamic force of these two tsunamis for the first time. The flow depth is found to be the best descriptor of tsunami damage for both events. Accordingly, the building fragility curves for complete damage reveal that (i) in Khao Lak–Phuket, the buildings affected by the IOT sustained more damage than the Sunda Strait tsunami, characterized by shorter wave periods, and (ii) the buildings performed better in Khao Lak–Phuket than in Banda Aceh (Indonesia). Although the IOT affected both locations, ground motions were recorded in the city of Banda Aceh, and buildings could have been seismically damaged prior to the tsunami's arrival, and (iii) the buildings of Palu City exposed to the Sulawesi–Palu tsunami were more susceptible to complete damage than the ones affected by the IOT, in Banda Aceh, between 0 and 2 m flow depth. Similar to the Banda Aceh case, the Sulawesi–Palu tsunami load may not be the only cause of structural destruction. The buildings' susceptibility to tsunami damage in the waterfront of Palu City could have been enhanced by liquefaction events triggered by the 2018 Sulawesi earthquake.