The Yomiuri Shimbun
Two months have passed since the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami devastated coastal areas of the Tohoku region, and reconstruction work is slowly making headway.
Major earthquakes and the hardships they cause the Japanese are nothing new, so it might be a good idea to look back at how previous governments dealt with the aftermath of two similar disasters--the Great Kanto Earthquake and the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
After the Great Kanto Earthquake devastated a large area of the Kanto region, centering around Tokyo, on Sept. 1, 1923, Shimpei Goto rolled up his sleeves and went to work as head of a government agency to reconstruct the capital. He also served concurrently as interior minister.
Goto, who had served as foreign minister and was the first president of the South Manchuria Railway Co., was mayor of Tokyo shortly before the earthquake occurred.
On Sept. 2, Prime Minister Gombei Yamamoto launched his cabinet and appointed Goto to the post of interior minister.
Later that day, Goto ruled out relocation of the nation's capital, announced that 3 billion yen would be spent on reconstruction, and said the latest Western urban planning methods would be used to rebuild Tokyo.
On Sept. 6, he submitted his proposals on Tokyo's reconstruction to the cabinet, which approved it with some reservations.
Goto's audacity was apparent when he came up with his proposal. The measures included establishment of a new government entity for reconstruction. Also, reconstruction costs in principle would be the responsibility of the government, and long-term government bonds would be issued at home and abroad to secure funds. The government would buy up disaster-hit plots of land by issuing public bonds, and lease or sell them after completing improvements.
On Sept. 27, Goto established Teito Fukko-in (Imperial Capital Reconstruction Board) chaired by the prime minister. The entity had the same status as a ministry.
The main sections of the board were the planning, construction and land-readjustment departments. It had complete authority over reconstruction.
About 600 handpicked bureaucrats were sent to the board from the Interior, Railways and other ministries.
On Nov. 24 that year, only two months after its establishment, the board drew up a seven-year reconstruction plan that included arterial roads and parks.
The board was downgraded to bureau status after the Yamamoto Cabinet resigned en masse in January 1924.
But the reconstruction plan is said to have led to the basic structure of today's Tokyo.
The Great Hanshin Earthquake occurred on Jan. 17, 1995. To deal with the disaster, the government utilized existing bureaucratic entities.
A reconstruction planning committee headed by Atsushi Shimokobe, former deputy head of the National Land Agency, drafted proposals. The Hyogo governor, Kobe mayor and chairman of the Kansai Economic Federation at the time were also on the committee.
Then Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama chaired a government headquarters for the reconstruction that included all cabinet members. The headquarters acted as a coordinator among ministries and agencies, and implemented reconstruction work.
The reconstruction committee held five meetings from Feb. 16 to March 23, 1995, and drafted seven emergency proposals for reconstruction planning, housing construction, employment, economic measures and other issues.
On the basis of the proposals, the government headquarters decided in the following month on a package of measures that included making Kobe Port fully functional again in two years.
Hyogo prefectural and Kobe city governments also drafted their own reconstruction plans.
Up to its 14th and last meeting on Oct. 30, 1995, the reconstruction committee submitted to the government 11 proposals and three letters of opinion.
===
Creating disaster-resistant cities
When it came to post-quake reconstruction efforts, those officials tasked with drawing up new urban plans for quake-hit cities, both in the wake of the major Kanto and Hanshin earthquakes, aimed at creating a new urban image, rather than merely restoring cities back to what they were before the disaster.
In the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, Goto, who called the disaster "the perfect opportunity to construct an ideal capital," aspired to build a city resistant to a major disaster.
Regarded as key to the project was the construction of large-scale trunk roads, which were to be at least 30 meters wide, and a large park.
Such major metropolitan streets as Yasukuni-dori avenue and Harumi-dori avenue running through central Tokyo today were built as part of that post-quake reconstruction effort.
Yamashita Park built on the shoreline in Yokohama and Sumida Park, built along the Sumida River, in Taito and Sumida wards, Tokyo, were also fruits of post-quake reconstruction.
Meanwhile, Goto had plots of land totaling about 3,600 hectares--an area larger than that devastated by the fires in the wake of the quake--which he designated as part of a large-scale urban redevelopment.
On that occasion, the Tokyo metropolitan Hibiya Public Hall was built in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, as a venue for citizens to discuss politics. Dojunkai fire-resistant, ferroconcrete apartment complexes were built in such places as Tokyo's Aoyama district and Yokohama, and would serve as prototype condominiums for modern Japan.
Created in the wake of the Great Hanshin Earthquake are facilities that have become emblems of Hyogo Prefecture's current urban image, including the Tobu Shintoshin district, where offices of the World Health Organization and other international entities are located in Kobe, and the Hyogo Performing Arts Center, which is playing a pivotal role in the cultural revival of the quake-hit prefecture, in Nishinomiya.
Yet there were a number of new urban development plans sought by local governments that did not become reality as the central government became cautious of implementing them.
A case in point was a plan to create a special economic zone on Awajishima island and a new artificial island under the leadership of the Hyogo prefectural government. The plan was to woo business enterprises with preferential incentives to spur economic growth. The central government became wary of the idea, on the grounds that it might end up approving "two systems in one country," and the plan was never realized.
===
Bonds main financial resource
The governments at the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake and the Great Hanshin Earthquake struggled to secure sufficient financial resources to reconstruct devastated areas.
Tax increases were proposed on both occasions, but these ideas were summarily dismissed because of fears they would hamper the revival of the wrecked economy. The governments had no choice but to issue bonds as the main financial resources for reconstruction.
Soon after his appointment as interior minister was confirmed at an attestation ceremony by the Emperor, Goto said, "We need 3 billion yen to reconstruct."
Goto called for such a huge amount of money--more than double the 1.4 billion yen annual state budget at the time--because he wanted to rebuild Tokyo as a disaster-resistant modern city.
"The government will pay all of the reconstruction costs using long-term domestic and foreign loans," he said.
However, the government could secure only about 700 million yen given the fiscal resources available at the time. Because of resistance from the biggest opposition party, Seiyukai, backed by the landowner class, and the weakness of Yamamoto's coalition government, reconstruction costs eventually were cut to about 460 million yen, forcing the Cabinet to reduce the width of main roads and scrap plans for some thoroughfares.
After the Great Hanshin Earthquake, reconstruction fell into the lap of the Murayama government, a coalition formed by the Liberal Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party of Japan and New Party Sakigake (Pioneers).
However, the Finance Ministry considered fiscal discipline of paramount importance, and this hampered efforts to secure financial resources for reconstruction.
The cost for rebuilding social infrastructure was estimated at 10 trillion yen. The government allocated 3.2 trillion yen, including the issuance of deficit bonds, by compiling three supplementary budgets to carry out such "reconstruction" work as debris removal.
But for real reconstruction, a long-term process requiring a huge budget, the ministry tightened its purse strings.
In the end, the government coughed up only about 6 trillion yen of a total 16.3 trillion yen in reconstruction costs over 10 years.
The Hyogo prefectural government complained at the time: "We were forced to issue a lot of local bonds. This put increased pressure on our finances."
(May. 14, 2011)
Showing posts with label Great Hanshin Quake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Great Hanshin Quake. Show all posts
Sunday, May 15, 2011
11/05 Teachers loyal to disaster-area kids
Akemi Ishii, Takeo Maeda and Keiji Ohara / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writers
Primary school teachers in disaster-hit areas continue to make extraordinary efforts on behalf of their young students.
Many teachers took it upon themselves to confirm the safety of their students after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. While also helping the management of evacuation centers, they have paid careful attention to children's mental conditions.
But a teacher who experienced the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake warned that authorities should do their best to avoid placing extra burdens on teachers, such as nonessential clerical work, and let them concentrate on teaching their students.
In Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture, all public primary and middle schools that did not suffer major damage in the disaster are used as shelters for evacuees. It is true for the Shizugawa Primary School, where almost all of the school's 33 teachers have helped sort relief supplies and run the shelter.
Relatives of some teachers went missing in the disaster, but Keiichi Kato, 57, principal of the school, said it had not affected the teachers' dedication to their students.
"All of them have put the children before their private matters," said Kato. He said three of his teachers had become ill due to overwork.
The teachers have also organized informal study sessions so children do not fall behind in their studies, and make their own original worksheets for their students.
When electricity was restored to the school on April 25, Yutaka Yamauchi, a 47-year-old teacher, was leading a study session in one of the classrooms. Since March 11, the clock in the room had been stopped at 2:46 p.m., the time the powerful earthquake struck. When the hands started moving for the first time since then, the children cheered, "Wow! The electricity's back!"
On April 30, during the Golden Week holidays, teachers gave their time to clean classrooms and sorted relief goods stored at the school. On Tuesday, the school officially began its new academic year.
===
Money no object
Of the 267 teachers at primary and middle schools in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, 75 lost their homes in the disaster.
Tomoko Ono, 33, a teacher at Kamaishi Higashi Middle School, lost her house to the tsunami. She escaped without even her purse or cell phone.
She spent the following days visiting different evacuation centers to confirm the safety of her students. By the time she made her first visit to where her house had stood, it was about two weeks after the disaster.
"I felt as if I'd been working nonstop, around the clock," she recalled.
Kamaishi Higashi Middle School teachers pooled 180,000 yen of their own money to buy a secondhand car so they could share it, along with a few other cars they borrowed from relatives, to visit students' homes and check in on them.
Damage to the school building forced the teachers to use a library at Koshi Middle School as their temporary staff room. There was only one landline telephone, so to make it easier to contact students and parents, the teachers again used their own money to buy cell phones.
A senior official at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry was surprised to hear the teachers had spent their own money.
"They bought a car for school activities?" he asked, adding there is no system to reimburse the teachers.
===
Emotional care
Eight students at Isobe Primary School in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, lost parents in the tsunami.
Teachers from the school took turns staying overnight at Soma municipal general welfare center, where the children were staying, to care for them for nearly a month after the disaster.
Reiko Ashiguchi, 42, was one of those teachers. She studied with the children and made origami cranes from newspapers with them, and worries about their well-being.
"Some of the kids haven't fully processed the reality of the disaster or their grief over losing their parents," she said.
The education ministry and prefectural boards of education plan to dispatch more school counselors to disaster-hit areas, but the local teachers who have built trusting relationships with their students will continue to play an important role in the grieving and healing process.
Hideto Takinouchi, a primary school teacher in Hyogo Prefecture who undertook training in children's mental health care after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, has visited schools in disaster-hit areas in Miyagi Prefecture. He said it is important for administrators to reduce teachers' clerical work as much as possible, so they can concentrate on their students.
"If teachers have to do everything, they'll burn out," he said.
(May. 11, 2011)
Primary school teachers in disaster-hit areas continue to make extraordinary efforts on behalf of their young students.
Many teachers took it upon themselves to confirm the safety of their students after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. While also helping the management of evacuation centers, they have paid careful attention to children's mental conditions.
But a teacher who experienced the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake warned that authorities should do their best to avoid placing extra burdens on teachers, such as nonessential clerical work, and let them concentrate on teaching their students.
In Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture, all public primary and middle schools that did not suffer major damage in the disaster are used as shelters for evacuees. It is true for the Shizugawa Primary School, where almost all of the school's 33 teachers have helped sort relief supplies and run the shelter.
Relatives of some teachers went missing in the disaster, but Keiichi Kato, 57, principal of the school, said it had not affected the teachers' dedication to their students.
"All of them have put the children before their private matters," said Kato. He said three of his teachers had become ill due to overwork.
The teachers have also organized informal study sessions so children do not fall behind in their studies, and make their own original worksheets for their students.
When electricity was restored to the school on April 25, Yutaka Yamauchi, a 47-year-old teacher, was leading a study session in one of the classrooms. Since March 11, the clock in the room had been stopped at 2:46 p.m., the time the powerful earthquake struck. When the hands started moving for the first time since then, the children cheered, "Wow! The electricity's back!"
On April 30, during the Golden Week holidays, teachers gave their time to clean classrooms and sorted relief goods stored at the school. On Tuesday, the school officially began its new academic year.
===
Money no object
Of the 267 teachers at primary and middle schools in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, 75 lost their homes in the disaster.
Tomoko Ono, 33, a teacher at Kamaishi Higashi Middle School, lost her house to the tsunami. She escaped without even her purse or cell phone.
She spent the following days visiting different evacuation centers to confirm the safety of her students. By the time she made her first visit to where her house had stood, it was about two weeks after the disaster.
"I felt as if I'd been working nonstop, around the clock," she recalled.
Kamaishi Higashi Middle School teachers pooled 180,000 yen of their own money to buy a secondhand car so they could share it, along with a few other cars they borrowed from relatives, to visit students' homes and check in on them.
Damage to the school building forced the teachers to use a library at Koshi Middle School as their temporary staff room. There was only one landline telephone, so to make it easier to contact students and parents, the teachers again used their own money to buy cell phones.
A senior official at the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry was surprised to hear the teachers had spent their own money.
"They bought a car for school activities?" he asked, adding there is no system to reimburse the teachers.
===
Emotional care
Eight students at Isobe Primary School in Soma, Fukushima Prefecture, lost parents in the tsunami.
Teachers from the school took turns staying overnight at Soma municipal general welfare center, where the children were staying, to care for them for nearly a month after the disaster.
Reiko Ashiguchi, 42, was one of those teachers. She studied with the children and made origami cranes from newspapers with them, and worries about their well-being.
"Some of the kids haven't fully processed the reality of the disaster or their grief over losing their parents," she said.
The education ministry and prefectural boards of education plan to dispatch more school counselors to disaster-hit areas, but the local teachers who have built trusting relationships with their students will continue to play an important role in the grieving and healing process.
Hideto Takinouchi, a primary school teacher in Hyogo Prefecture who undertook training in children's mental health care after the Great Hanshin Earthquake, has visited schools in disaster-hit areas in Miyagi Prefecture. He said it is important for administrators to reduce teachers' clerical work as much as possible, so they can concentrate on their students.
"If teachers have to do everything, they'll burn out," he said.
(May. 11, 2011)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
02/05 Quake-tied bankruptcies double '95 Hanshin pace
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The March 11 disaster is causing more than twice as many bankruptcies as the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake did, with the Kanto region being hit hardest because of supply shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
According to Teikoku Databank Ltd., a corporate credit research company, 57 companies went bankrupt between March 11 and the end of April because of the Great East Japan Earthquake. This figure includes companies currently going through bankruptcy proceedings.
Even businesses that were not directly affected by the disaster have been stung by the damage suffered by client companies in the hard-hit Tohoku region.
Of the 57 companies that have gone under, only 13 were in Tohoku. Most of these companies had their head offices wrecked by the earthquake or their inventory swept away by tsunami.
Many of the 44 other companies were in areas not directly affected by the disaster, but have been unable to obtain components for their products or were battered by a flood of cancellations as people voluntarily refrained from unnecessary spending in a show of solidarity with quake victims.
By region, 17 companies were in Kanto, Hokkaido and Hokuriku each had seven, and three were in Kyushu, according to Teikoku Databank.
In the six weeks after the Jan. 17, 1995, Great Hanshin Earthquake, 22 companies went bankrupt because of damage caused by the temblor.
Of 394 companies that went bankrupt due to the Hanshin quake over the three years until the end of 1997, 210, or more than half, were based in Hyogo Prefecture and had been damaged by the earthquake.
(May. 2, 2011)
The March 11 disaster is causing more than twice as many bankruptcies as the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake did, with the Kanto region being hit hardest because of supply shortages caused by the earthquake and tsunami.
According to Teikoku Databank Ltd., a corporate credit research company, 57 companies went bankrupt between March 11 and the end of April because of the Great East Japan Earthquake. This figure includes companies currently going through bankruptcy proceedings.
Even businesses that were not directly affected by the disaster have been stung by the damage suffered by client companies in the hard-hit Tohoku region.
Of the 57 companies that have gone under, only 13 were in Tohoku. Most of these companies had their head offices wrecked by the earthquake or their inventory swept away by tsunami.
Many of the 44 other companies were in areas not directly affected by the disaster, but have been unable to obtain components for their products or were battered by a flood of cancellations as people voluntarily refrained from unnecessary spending in a show of solidarity with quake victims.
By region, 17 companies were in Kanto, Hokkaido and Hokuriku each had seven, and three were in Kyushu, according to Teikoku Databank.
In the six weeks after the Jan. 17, 1995, Great Hanshin Earthquake, 22 companies went bankrupt because of damage caused by the temblor.
Of 394 companies that went bankrupt due to the Hanshin quake over the three years until the end of 1997, 210, or more than half, were based in Hyogo Prefecture and had been damaged by the earthquake.
(May. 2, 2011)
Saturday, April 23, 2011
22/04 余録：被災のはさみ状較差
阪神大震災で被災者のケアにあたった精神科医は、地震の４０～５０日後に人々の間のある変化に気づく。ふだんより元気になった人と、ひきこもってしまう人の違いが目につく。その差がまるで開いたはさみの刃のように広がっていくのだ▲柔軟に新発想を出す人と考えられないほど頑固になる人、酒を飲まなくなった人とアルコールにのめり込む人、仲がよくなった夫婦とヒビの入った夫婦－－最初のわずかな差が日を追ってどんどん開いていく。医師はそれを経済用語を借りて「鋏状較差（きょうじょうかくさ）」と呼んだ▲貧富の差もはさみ状の広がりを見せる。経済力や社会的人脈、地縁をもつ人々と孤立した人々の境遇の違いが拡大した。人々の生死を分けた震災は、その後も人々の幸不幸を切り分けた（中井久夫編著「昨日のごとく」）▲当時よりも長引く避難所生活のストレスだ。そして大津波から４０日以上を経た今も行方の知れぬ子や親、兄弟を捜し続ける人々がいる。悲しみが癒えるどころか、積もり重なるこの震災である。復興に向かう周囲のムードと、取り残されるような孤立感に苦しむ人々の落差の広がりも未曽有の様相を見せている▲長い「被災」を生きる人を孤立させないさまざまな取り組みが必要な今後の復興だ。国が仮設住宅に配置する高齢者や障害者の介護の拠点もその一つだろう。自治体の判断で生活相談やボランティアの拠点にも使えるこうしたスペースをより有効に活用できればいい▲震災との闘いで一つになった人々の心も、復興へそれぞれの挑戦を始めていく今だ。「較差」のはさみが人同士のいたわり合いまで断ち切るのは防ぎたい。毎日新聞 2011年4月22日 0時03分
Sunday, April 10, 2011
10/04 50 years of effort swept away / Tsunami wiped out dikes, breakwaters that took decades to build
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Municipalities along the Sanriku coast spent decades building larger, stronger breakwaters to keep deadly tsunami out. However, many dikes and breakwaters--even the world's deepest--were simply swept away or left in ruins by the massive March 11 tsunami.
Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture, had been strengthening the town's defenses against tsunami for about 50 years. The destruction caused by a tsunami in 1960 prompted the town to build coastal breakwaters and floodgates that could block a 5.5-meter-high tsunami.
In 1995--the year of the Great Hanshin Earthquake--the Minami-Sanrikucho government constructed a three-story building that housed disaster-prevention headquarters. The ferroconcrete building was equipped with improved wireless telecommunications and water level-measurement devices.
Each year on May 24, the date the 1960 tsunami hit the town after speeding across the Pacific after the Chile quake, the town government held disaster-prevention exercises. Residents were drilled on how to prepare for a tsunami--and react when one is on the way.
However, these efforts were largely toothless in the face of last month's tsunami. About 70 percent of the homes and other buildings in Minami-Sanrikucho were reduced to piles of debris. The town's breakwater floodgate was destroyed, and signs indicating water levels during a 1960 tsunami caused by an earthquake off Chile were knocked to the ground by the water.
The raging waters even reached the roof of the disaster-prevention building. Only a few of about 40 town government officials survived.
"If the town government is told to compile a disaster-prevention plan based on the latest tsunami, we don't have the resources to do that," Minami-Sanrikucho Mayor Jin Sato said. "This is an opportunity for individuals to think about disaster prevention. If a tsunami hits, the only thing to do is escape to higher ground."
The Miyagi prefectural government had strengthened disaster-prevention measures and drawn up hazard maps since 2000, when the central government announced there was an 80 percent chance of a big earthquake striking off the prefecture within 20 years. Last fiscal year, the prefectural government started considering how to prepare for a tsunami on a par with one triggered by an earthquake off the Sanriku coast in 1896. That tsunami killed nearly 22,000 people and was up to 38.2 meters high.
"We'll need to reexamine disaster-prevention measures for the future," a disaster-prevention official of the prefectural government said.
In the Taro district of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, the March 11 tsunami swept over and smashed 10-meter-high twin dikes built to protect 2.5 kilometers of coastline.
Tsunami had destroyed the area in 1896 and 1933. The dikes that guarded the town took 44 years to build and were completed in 1978.
In 1960, completed sections of the dikes protected the district from the tsunami that came from Chile. Local residents trusted the dikes they dubbed their "great walls" would protect them.
Unfortunately, they were no match for the March 11 tsunami.
Just down the coast in Kamaishi, breakwaters that had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's deepest also were overwhelmed.
Despite being made from 7 million cubic meters of concrete, 63 meters deep and having walls that stood eight meters above the surface, more than half of the breakwaters that stretched into the bay off Kamaishi were left in ruins.
Only a few sections of the breakwaters now poke through the water. Residents never imagined their breakwaters would get wiped out.
"I was astonished because the breakwaters hadn't even wobbled during previous tsunami," said Yoshikatsu Nodate, 73, whose home was washed away by the tsunami.
However hard it might be, the nation will have to restart attempts to overcome huge natural disasters. The sheer scale of the March 11 tsunami will force the Iwate prefectural government to rethink its disaster-prevention measures.
The prefectural government had asked municipal governments to reexamine disaster-prevention measures based on an estimate that about 1,300 people would die if the prefecture was hit by a tsunami of the same scale as the 1896 tsunami.
The prefectural government moved designated shelters to higher ground, compiled detailed evacuation routes and redrew hazard maps. But after the March 11 tsunami shattered the assumption that these steps would be enough, some officials are unsure what more could be done.
"We believed we'd done everything possible based on very detailed assumptions, but...," a prefectural government official in charge of disaster-prevention said. "I wonder what else we could do."
(Apr. 10, 2011)
Municipalities along the Sanriku coast spent decades building larger, stronger breakwaters to keep deadly tsunami out. However, many dikes and breakwaters--even the world's deepest--were simply swept away or left in ruins by the massive March 11 tsunami.
Minami-Sanrikucho, Miyagi Prefecture, had been strengthening the town's defenses against tsunami for about 50 years. The destruction caused by a tsunami in 1960 prompted the town to build coastal breakwaters and floodgates that could block a 5.5-meter-high tsunami.
In 1995--the year of the Great Hanshin Earthquake--the Minami-Sanrikucho government constructed a three-story building that housed disaster-prevention headquarters. The ferroconcrete building was equipped with improved wireless telecommunications and water level-measurement devices.
Each year on May 24, the date the 1960 tsunami hit the town after speeding across the Pacific after the Chile quake, the town government held disaster-prevention exercises. Residents were drilled on how to prepare for a tsunami--and react when one is on the way.
However, these efforts were largely toothless in the face of last month's tsunami. About 70 percent of the homes and other buildings in Minami-Sanrikucho were reduced to piles of debris. The town's breakwater floodgate was destroyed, and signs indicating water levels during a 1960 tsunami caused by an earthquake off Chile were knocked to the ground by the water.
The raging waters even reached the roof of the disaster-prevention building. Only a few of about 40 town government officials survived.
"If the town government is told to compile a disaster-prevention plan based on the latest tsunami, we don't have the resources to do that," Minami-Sanrikucho Mayor Jin Sato said. "This is an opportunity for individuals to think about disaster prevention. If a tsunami hits, the only thing to do is escape to higher ground."
The Miyagi prefectural government had strengthened disaster-prevention measures and drawn up hazard maps since 2000, when the central government announced there was an 80 percent chance of a big earthquake striking off the prefecture within 20 years. Last fiscal year, the prefectural government started considering how to prepare for a tsunami on a par with one triggered by an earthquake off the Sanriku coast in 1896. That tsunami killed nearly 22,000 people and was up to 38.2 meters high.
"We'll need to reexamine disaster-prevention measures for the future," a disaster-prevention official of the prefectural government said.
In the Taro district of Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, the March 11 tsunami swept over and smashed 10-meter-high twin dikes built to protect 2.5 kilometers of coastline.
Tsunami had destroyed the area in 1896 and 1933. The dikes that guarded the town took 44 years to build and were completed in 1978.
In 1960, completed sections of the dikes protected the district from the tsunami that came from Chile. Local residents trusted the dikes they dubbed their "great walls" would protect them.
Unfortunately, they were no match for the March 11 tsunami.
Just down the coast in Kamaishi, breakwaters that had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's deepest also were overwhelmed.
Despite being made from 7 million cubic meters of concrete, 63 meters deep and having walls that stood eight meters above the surface, more than half of the breakwaters that stretched into the bay off Kamaishi were left in ruins.
Only a few sections of the breakwaters now poke through the water. Residents never imagined their breakwaters would get wiped out.
"I was astonished because the breakwaters hadn't even wobbled during previous tsunami," said Yoshikatsu Nodate, 73, whose home was washed away by the tsunami.
However hard it might be, the nation will have to restart attempts to overcome huge natural disasters. The sheer scale of the March 11 tsunami will force the Iwate prefectural government to rethink its disaster-prevention measures.
The prefectural government had asked municipal governments to reexamine disaster-prevention measures based on an estimate that about 1,300 people would die if the prefecture was hit by a tsunami of the same scale as the 1896 tsunami.
The prefectural government moved designated shelters to higher ground, compiled detailed evacuation routes and redrew hazard maps. But after the March 11 tsunami shattered the assumption that these steps would be enough, some officials are unsure what more could be done.
"We believed we'd done everything possible based on very detailed assumptions, but...," a prefectural government official in charge of disaster-prevention said. "I wonder what else we could do."
(Apr. 10, 2011)
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