A heuristic approach to Red Crescent aid depots location problem

Abstract

An earthquake is a sudden, rapid shaking of the earth caused by the breaking and shifting of rock beneath the earth's surface. Earthquakes strike suddenly, without warning, and they can occur at any time of the year, day or night. After the earthquake, in parallel with the search and rescue operations aids should be sent to the survivors. Seismic map of Turkey is examined in this study. Delivery of aid as soon as possible to those in need after the earthquake is of utmost importance. For to decrease the total aid delivery time, Particle Swarm Optimization applied to the results obtained by Fuzzy C-Means Clustering to determine the places that aids must be stored.