COMPLETION REPORT
Japan as the World's Most Enviable Role Model in Earthquake Management:
Learning from the March 2011 Mega Disasters
Dr. Monir Hossain Moni
Research Associate Professor/Director
Division of Asian & International Affairs
Asia Pacific Institute for Global Studies
This so timely and important research is an endeavor to explore why Japanese wonderful model for natural
disaster risk reduction, preparedness and management can be useful for the disaster-affected countries inthe world, Asia with a particular focus on Bangladesh.
A conceptual skeleton on ‘disaster management’ and ‘earthquake engineering’ has been developed toconduct this qualitative research. The study demonstrates that natural disasters are becoming more regularand destructive, and now represent the biggest threat to human welfare. Hence, there is an emerging
consensus on the urgency of disaster management as a complex series of events including risk assessment,
prevention measures, early preparedness to tackle future disasters, emergency response to a disaster,
recovery and reconstruction. It also asserts that applying the engineering knowledge for protecting bothnatural environment and man-made setup from earthquakes by limiting the seismic risk to socioeconomically acceptable levels has become quite essential. Building and managing infrastructure systems
as well as transferring advanced technologies assume significance at the same time, clearly because they
are vital for both developing and developed societies to mitigate the risks even in an uncertain situation.
Besides, the project justifies the need to further cultivate the notion of ‘human security’ in the context ofnatural disasters.
The research reveals the fact that the distinguishing ability of Japan as a highly modernized andtechnologically developed nation to manage any large-scale natural catastrophe is acclaimed globally
today. More explicitly, it depicts that the Japanese people are well versed in the art of picking themselves
up from any sort of tragedy while ‘yamato damashii’ [Japanese spirit] has amazingly wondered the world’s
media. But the legacy of the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake-triggered tsunami as a mega-disaster hastaught them to do more for the future. As the project also exemplifies, there are manifold worthwhile
lessons on disaster management that the rest of the world can adopt from Japan’s experience-based
wisdom, when the country’s robust response to such a calamity has infused all the wrong questions raisedby some skeptics.
Moreover, it keenly argues that since Japan’s disaster risk reduction efforts were rather successful inlimiting damages and loss of lives from the earthquake, this nation could definitely inspire other risk-prone
countries across Asia as the globe’s most sensitive region to climate disasters to vigilantly maintain
resilience toward natural disasters. However, this policy-oriented piece recommends that Bangladesh,which is extremely vulnerable to earthquakes due to its geological location at a tectonically active area inthe delta basin facing the Bay of Bengal, should learn some realistic lessons from Japan for reducing therisk of its potential earthquakes, even though Bangladesh is still impoverished compared to a mostdeveloped Japan with its seismic technological supremacy.
Finally, the insightful findings of this original research will surely be of use to the involved public
policymakers and other stakeholders who have an arduous search for Japan’s innovative problem-solving
skills on disaster risk management and post-disaster reconstruction, when a lack of natural disaster
preparedness can severely set back any hard-earned development achievement.

Publication of the Results of Research Project:Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)•Date: 19-20 September 2014•

Venue: Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand•

Name of conference: The 8th Congress of the Asian Political and International Studies Association(APISA)•Title of presentation: “Risk Reduction, Preparedness and Management for Natural Disasters: AJapanese Experience for South Asia”•Presenter: Monir Hossain Moni

Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
N/A

Special Research Monograph (Publisher and Date of the Monograph, Title and Author of the Monograph,etc.)•Name of publisher: Program on Global Japan Studies, Asia Pacific Institute for Global Studies•

Tentative date of release: 31December 2015

•Title of the special research monograph: “Japan as the World’s Most Enviable Role Model inEarthquake Management: Learning from the March 2011 Mega Disasters”•Author of the monograph: Monir Hossain Moni