| Summary: | The Lisbon region has suffered throughout its history high impacts from near and far earthquakes, which main examples are the earthquakes of 1356 and 1775. The vulnerability of access routes to hospitals located in the municipality of Lisbon against the occurrence of an earthquake is a topic that had not been addressed so far but is of major importance to estimate the areas of roads occupied by debris from the collapse of buildings after an earthquake and the subsequent establishment of mitigation and response preparedness. This study aims to assess the vulnerabilities of accessibility to hospitals São José, Santa Marta, Capuchos and Estefania. These hospitals were chosen because they are geographically located near each other, because they belong to the same core hospital, Central Lisbon Hospital Center, and are located in areas that would suffer significant damage in case of a seismic event. The civil parishes of Pena and St.º Estevão, where this core hospital is located, are characterized by having pré-pombalino and gaioleiro type buildings; for this reason the structural impacts of an earthquake may be high. To assess the vulnerability of accessibility, international methodologies were followed and the RADIUS method was used because it is a method that requires few resources and is easily adaptable to the characteristics of each country. Factors such as construction density, type of collapse, characteristics of the building, and the relative distance between buildings and roads were considered in the estimated levels of longitudinal and lateral road occupancy and in the severity of its occupation. In a severe post-earthquake scenario the study area will have more than half of its road network occupied by debris. This raises big questions about how to process the helping of victims, how the emergency vehicles will circulate and especially how to make the clearance of the roads. Based on these results, vulnerabilities in the road network access to hospitals were identified, mitigation measures were proposed and access routes to hospitals that have lower occupation of debris in case of seismic event were identified. |