Earthquakes are real threats that plague Indonesia constantly. We can't predict when an earthquake will strike, but we can forecast where it will hit and how intense it will be using geologic and historic data. The loading on a fault zone is assessed using known strain rates over times since the last event from historic and geologic records. Most historical accounts in Indonesia are found in Dutch documents. I am translating accounts into English of pre-instrumental earthquakes affecting Ambon and reconstructing these significant earthquake events using the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale (MMI) and ArcGIS Pro. I used multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW) measurements acquired in Ambon and historical documents for an earthquake event in 1898 to create hazard maps for the island. These provide a proxy for identifying areas most at risk for earthquake damage. I compared these measurements to damage that occurred during an earthquake in 2019, which happened one month after collecting the MASW data there. Areas with low s-wave velocities had worse damage during both the 1898 and 2019 events in Ambon.

Damage across the island was determined using known points of damage (MMI) and using the IDW tool in ArcGIS Pro.