D9THE SUNDAY GLEANER, NOVEMBER 12, 2017 | NEWS

‘Leave or die’A devastated Japanese town fights back

HIGASHIMATSUSHIMA, Japan:
FORRESIDENTSofHigashimatsushima in Japan,
there was no question ofwhether to leave their homes inareas that were vulnerable tonatural disasters.
Given the relative speed andunpredictability of an earthquakeor tsunami, it was even morecrucial to have a clear plan to get
out and get out fast.
The town’s mayor Iwao
Atsumi said residents weresimply presented with theposition: ‘if you want to live, youleave, if you want to die, youstay’. There is no room fornegotiation.
“When the tsunami hits, thepeople have no option but to run
away (to higher ground),”said
Atsumi.
By the time the March 2011
tsunami hit, of the town’s
43,132 residents, more than
15,000 considered in need of
evacuation had already headed
to 106 shelters in safe areas.

STRICT INSTRUCTIONS
He said that the plan included
strict instructions which weregiven to the residents andreinforced in drill by a team ofcommunity volunteers.
Municipal leaders cannot
force a person to disclose his
personal situation underJ a p a n privacy laws, but
Higashimatsushima insists that
persons who need assistanceindicate this so that they may behelped into a shelter.
With 65 per cent of the town
inundated and approximately 73
per cent of all housing destroyedin some way, there was really nochoice or place to stay.
The city recorded 1,109 deadand 24 missing. At 1,133, thefigure represented three per centof the city’s population.
Tough decisions had to bemade even though someresidents, local fisherfolk in thearea famous for conch andseaweed harvesting, hadconcerns about leaving theirhouses permanently.
“What we did was todesignate the coastal area bandas a restricted area and banned it
as a residential area. The city
has made it into its law andregulation, prohibiting people tolive in this area,” the mayor
outlined.
But there have beenconcessions.
“There is a special land wherepeople live, but they had tomove away from the island but
continued with their fishing.
Also, the local government
provided funding to relocate
residents with land provided forbuilding homes under anarrangement where (for) the
first 30 years the land isprovided to the people rent
free,” said Atsumi.
For persons who could afford
to build their own house, forexample, seniors, they areprovided with housing at a
special rate of roughly
JMD$11,169 (10,000 yen) per
month.
A new elementary school in
the relocation area opened its
doors in January 2016, while
1,001 residential apartment
houses have already been
completed and delivered.
Atsumi said that while they
could not have imagined thescope of the earthquake andtsunami, they had learnt fromprevious disasters, especially amassive 1995 earthquake, which
devastated parts of the city ofKobe.
“Once in every 35 to 40 years
we expect something, so we areprepared for that, but thisdisaster was a one in 600-800
year event, so we were notprepared against the enormity ofit,” said Atsumi.

THE TOWN PLAN
Pulling on that experience, thetown crafted its own plan; large
sorting areas – roughly the sizeof two football fields – wereidentified, with a designateddumping site where debris wassorted mostly by hand to help
displaced workers earn.
A special 20-foot seawall has
been constructed, and isspecially designed to absorb atsunami on its way into the town
for the first time, and also as
water recedes, which tends tohappen in such circumstances.
A second wall was built about
1.5 kilometres further inland,with special diversion canals tofeed the water back out to sea.
The city also installed sevensolar-powered surveillancecameras along the seaside, whichallows meteorologists to see
incoming tsunamis and guideresidents to even higher ground,based on the water phenomenon.
To power itself, a solar farmwith 15,000 panels has been
built, and provides power for 600
families, while producing 2.1
million kilowatt-hours per year.
But just as the city has learnt
from the 1995 earthquake, theaim is to cover all the bases andmake a model city in disasterrecovery so that they may beable to help other areas.
It is a team effort which, so far,has pulled on other communities
and the support of local
residents in a game of survival.
glenda.anderson@gleanerjm.com

PHOTOS BY AMITABH SHARMA

Japan Meteorological Agency headquarters in Tokyo is the heart and soul of the country’s weather system and disastermanagement.

THE INEVITABLE

Preparing forWith 200,000 earthquakes each year, Japan has lessons for Jamaica

Glenda Anderson
Sunday Gleaner Writer

TOKYO, Japan:
O K Y O W E AT H E R
forecasters have predicted a
70 per cent chance of amajor earthquake hitting thecountry in the next 30 years.
This is news which hasbolstered a sustained publiccampaign on what to do should theearthquake happen soon.
Japan, a series of islands in the
Pacific Ocean, sits on a major fault
line which sees the country
particularly vulnerable to quakes
and shocks.
Locals can still recall the threemajor earthquakes that have struck
in recent times – 1995, 2011, and2016, all magnitude scale seven,the largest recognised in Japan.
In 2011, the earthquake
happened on the ocean floor,
moving tectonic plates over a vastarea. In 1995 and 2016, however,it was the result of an active fault
which saw damage concentrated
over a small area.
Takashi Nakajima, instructor at
the Honjyo Bosai-kan (Life Safety
Learning Centre) operated by theTokyo Fire Department, says that
20 per cent of magnitude six
earthquakes that happen in theworld happen in Japan, prompting
the country’s no-nonsense
approach to disaster preparedness.

TSIMULATION EXERCISE

A school under construction in the new city ofHigashimatsushima.

Still, there have been massive
destruction and heavy casualties. A
simulation
exerciseandinformation session on Friday,
October 20, for journalists on
the 2017 Pacific-Caribbean
Journalists’ Programme at the life
train centre in Tokyo, highlighted
renewed focus on the role of theyouth in creating awareness andsustaining efforts in preparing fordisasters.
Schools and community groups
rallied to create awareness and exit
plans with volunteer teams often
staffed by high-school students.

A section at Japan Meteorological Agency headquarters in Tokyo that monitors real-time
volcanic activity across the country.

“Schools and community
groups rally to createawareness and exit
plans with volunteer
teams often staffed byhigh-school students.

Regular community drills andupdates are also conducted.
A series of measures werepitched at the individual level, andthough this was not mandated by
local authorities, persons wereencouraged to fortify their own
homes with simple adjustments.
For example, persons can use
braces and straps to secure large
furniture to the wall, install special
locks on furniture doors so that
contents would not be tossed out,
and placing rubber mats under
furniture.
Nakajima said that in the 1995
earthquake, of the 6,434 persons
who were killed, 5,000 of that
number were crushed by fallingfurniture.
With 200,000 earthquakes
annually in the country, it is not”

something the agencies are taking
lightly.
Forecasters at the Japan
Meteorological Agency’s earthquake
department say there is year-round24-hour monitoring with teams of
11 persons working night and day.
Nobuhide Nonaka outlined asystem which gives local residents

just seconds to respond toearthquake alerts.

HELP OF SENSORS“Whenever an earthquake issensed by humans, the system will
make a command. Sensors areplaced at 300 places across theislands with earthquake montage
machines at 4,000 locations,” hesaid.
Using the data, analysts
determine the size and place of theearthquake. It takes two minutes tomake a decision and within no
more than two minutes todisseminate information to thetelevision – crucial timing to get
out of the way of a disaster you
really cannot see coming.
glenda.anderson@gleanerjm.com