Enhancing Preparedness of Local Governments
by Using "a Collection of Critical Situations
during Flood Emergency Response
under COVID-19"
Miho OHARA
Senior Researcher
International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM)
under the auspices of UNESCO,
Public Works Research Institute, Japan

International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM)ICHARM was established as a UNESCO Category Ⅱ center and part of the Public Works
Research Institute (PWRI) of Japan in March 2006.
-Education and Training-Flood and Drought Analysis
Programsand Risk Assessment-Master’s and Ph.D. programs
Innovative-Field Investigation
for disaster management
Research-Short-term training programsMore than 1,000 people
joined these programs

Information
Networking-Secretariat ofInternational Flood
Initiative (IFI)

Capacity
Building

IFI Members
22Flood disasters in Japan
During the 10‐year period from 2009 to 2018,‐Approximately 97% of the municipalities were flooded at least once.
‐More than half (56.6%) of the municipalities were flooded more than 10 times.
‐Only 2.8% of the municipalities were never flooded.
(by flood damage statistics in Japan)

Water‐related disaster risk reduction considering the prevention of COVID‐19 infection isthe key issue for all the municipalities in Japan.

Torrential Rainfall in Kumamoto Prefecture in July, 2020
Torrential rainfall from July 3 to July 31
caused wide area inundation due to dyke
breaches along Kuma River in Kumamoto
Prefecture in Kyusyu islands. 84 people
died and 17,679 houses were damaged asof October 1.

JMA

3‐hrs rainfall in Kyusyu islands on July 4

Photo by ICHARM

Torrential Rainfall in Kumamoto Prefecture in July, 2020
Torrential rainfall from July 3 to July 31
caused wide area inundation due to dyke
breaches along Kuma River in Kumamoto
Prefecture in Kyusyu islands. 84 people
died and 17,679 houses were damaged asof October 1.

Number of Positives

JMA

3‐hrs rainfall in Kyusyu islands on July 4

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan

Approaches to collect “Near‐miss cases” in the field ofindustrial accidents or in safety engineering
Heinrich's law

1

Severe accidents

29

Minor accidents

300

Near‐missHerbert William
Heinrich (1929)

Existing approaches
In the fields of industrial accidents or in safety engineering, it is encouraged tocollect the cases of “near‐miss” before real accidents occur and to make efforts toprevent accidents from occurring again. (Hatamura, 2002)
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) published a manual ofcollecting “near‐miss” related to traffic accidents and marine accidents.
(MLIT(Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism), 2009)Collection of Critical Situations during Flood Emergency Response
Critical Situations during flood emergency response
Situations in which local government officers panic, don’t know what to do, cannot makedecisions, are confused or in dilemma, etc., during an emergency response effort.
Main Content: local government response

Appendix: local government
response under COVID-19

FromJune 25,2020
https://www.pwri.go.jp/icharm/special_topic/20200625_flood_response_collection_j.html

Collection of Critical Situations during Flood Emergency Response
Critical Situations during flood emergency response
Situations in which local government officers panic, don’t know what to do, cannot makedecisions, are confused or in dilemma, etc., during an emergency response effort.
Main Content: local government responseAppendix: local government
response under COVID-19

https://www.pwri.go.jp/icharm/special_topic/20200625_flood_response_collection_e.html

Methodology
1. Collect action review reports (post‐disaster review 29 reports
reports) published by local governments since 2000. (Over 2,000 pages)
516 criticalsituations

2. Extract critical situations from these reports.
3. Make a database of critical situations.
4. Identify typical critical situations in eight categories.

28 typicalcriticalsituations.

5. A collection of these typical critical situations weredeveloped with recommended countermeasures .

Collected 516 critical situations in 8 categories
Officers frequently
experienced criticalsituations in Coordination
with DRR organizations,communication with local
residents, local damage
information collection,
operation of EOC, etc.

Example of the Pages of Main Contents

Lesson related to facilities
OutlineLesson related to procedures
Process and Cause

Lesson related to officers’ skill
ResultSimilar cases

Example of thePages ofAppendix:
local government
response under
COVID-19

OutlineTargetProcessand Cause
ResultNecessary
MeasuresExample 1: Crowded Shelters
Example of a critical situation in “Chapter 8: Shelters (designated emergency evacuation
shelters and sites, etc.)”

OutlineTargetProcessand Cause
ResultExample 1: Crowded Shelters
Example of a critical situation in “Chapter 8: Shelters (designated emergency evacuation
shelters and sites, etc.)”

NecessaryMeasures

Torrential Rainfall in Kumamoto Prefecture in July, 2020
Torrential rainfall from July 3 to July
31 caused wide area inundation due todyke breaches along Kuma River inKumamoto Prefecture in Kyusyu islands.
For social distancing among evacuees,
affected municipalities organizedpartitions for space division atevacuation shelters.

From Manual by the Cabinet Office

Photo by ICHARM

Example 2: Shortage of manpower at shelters

OutlineTargetProcessand Cause
ResultIn Kumamoto Prefecture, a support staff was dispatched fromother Prefecture for supporting the management of evacuation
shelters, but this staff was infected with COVID‐19. As a result, atotal of 383 evacuees, including municipal staffs, took PCR test
and were confirmed to be negative.

Example 2: Shortage of manpower at shelters
Example of a critical situation in “Chapter 8: Shelters (designated emergency evacuation
shelters and sites, etc.)”

Necessary Measures

Conclusions
 For efficient emergency response, it is essential to anticipate difficulties during
emergency response and implement countermeasures and capacity building ofrelated officers before a disaster.
 We selected 28 cases of critical situations in which local government officers
panic, don’t know what to do, cannot make decisions, are confused or indilemma, etc., during flood emergency response in general flood disasters andflood disasters with the risk of COVID‐19.
 Some of the critical situations collected in the booklet “Collection of CriticalSituations during Flood Emergency Response” actually occurred in the affectedarea due to the torrential rainfall in July 2020 in Japan.
 We hope that this publication could provide some hints for local government
officers to plan necessary countermeasures while considering local needs andsituations, including the risk of COVID‐19.

Contact address: icharm@pwri.go.jp