Strategy for the Location of Shelters in Communities of High Seismic Risk in the Central-South Zone of Mexico

Earthquakes cause diverse damages on human settlements, from disruption of services, collapse and destabilization of buildings, to the rise of diseases and death of people. Mexico is one of the countries with the highest risk of earthquakes given its location in the so-called ''Ring of Fire'' which registers the majority of telluric movements worldwide. In particular, the central-southern zone of Mexico has been severely affected by recent earthquakes. Since the greatest impact has been the immediate loss of housing and basic service infrastructure, a strategy is imperative to locate shelters that cover these needs during and after the seismic event until the affected housing and services are restored. Similarly, these shelters must have the capacity to receive the majority of the long-term affected population. Therefore, this paper develops a logistics strategy to locate these centers for the state of Puebla, which has been severely affected by these events. The strategy makes use of Weber's multiple location model which is solved using a nearest neighbor heuristic and mixed programming. The results provide coverage for high-risk areas that can be implemented in other regions of the country.