Occurrence Characteristics of Marine Accidents Caused by Typhoon around Korean Peninsula

During the period of every summer to early autumn seasons, ships have been wrecked or grounded from effect of a typhoon in the waters around Korean Peninsular. Typhoon Rusa killed more than 100 people in September 2002. Super Typhoon Maemi passed southeast of South Korea in September 12-13, 2003, with gale winds blowing at a record 60 m/s and caused much ship groundings, collisions and sinkings over 3000 in dockyards, harbors and places of refuge. These are things that could have been prevented had there merely been prior warning. The aim of this study is to examine what effect these typhoons had on occurrence characteristics of the maritime accidents in South Korea. In this work, records of marine accidents caused by a typhoon are investigated for the period from 1962 to 2002. The distribution is also compared with the trajectories of typhoons, passed during the 1990-2003. It is shown that attack frequency of typhoon and number of marine accidents is the highest in August. We use the track data of Maemi such as central pressure, maximum sustained wind speed and area of each 15m/s and 25m/s winds as a case study to draw a map as a risk index.