Integral vertical disruption force acting on the tokamak vacuum vessel wall is analytically calculated starting from the Maxwell equations and the Ohm’s law for the wall. With axial symmetry, these allow transformations of the integral to the expression explicitly showing the key parameters in the task. It is confirmed, in particular, that the toroidal current density in the plasma fully determines the plasma contribution into the force, while the knowledge of the poloidal halo current is not needed. Another finding is that, for the wall current description, two modes with different decay rates are required. The force is examined with emphasis on the post-disruption stage. The model proposed in Miyamoto (2011 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion53 082001) is revised. The study is fully analytical.