Research Trends and Results

Undertaking the housing recovery and reconstruction
by local builders in the Great East Japan Earthquake
SUMIKURA Hideaki, Researcher (Ph. D., Engineering)
Housing Department, Housing Production Division
MORI Masashi, HeadHousing Planning Devision（Key words）

The Great East Japan Earthquake, Local builder, Housing, Repair, Reconstruction

1. Introduction
By The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred on
March 11, 2011, Tohoku region has suffered fromsignificant damage brought by the earthquake andfurther by the Tsunami in the maritime areas. MILIM
has been, remarking the housing recovery andreconstruction undertaken afterward by local builders
located in damaged areas, continuously implementing
the actual investigation in damaged areas fromimmediately after the disaster so as to study actual stateof the housing production system that contributes toraise up the local potential for recovery at the time of
emergency such as disaster. This report is to introduce
such reaction for the repair and renovation of housing
implemented by local builders and the like
immediately after the disaster.
2. Reaction of local builders immediately after thedisaster
The Great East Japan Earthquake has broken full or
half of approximately two hundred thousands housingsat the time of December 2011 (including thosehousings flown out by the Tsunami). The I corporation,
having its main office in Morioka, Iwate prefecture,
has stopped the construction work immediately after
the disaster but started actions to the extent it could do
although complaining the gasoline shortage as it hasreceived requirements for repair from the day after thetelephone was recovered. The S corporation inRikuzentakada has sent out its staff earlier to visit theclients homes when the road became available that has
been broken around five days by the wreckage broughtby the Tsunami, in order to check damaged situation of
the housing and acknowledge emergency action as
well as requirements for the reconstruction and repairof the housing. The H and other corporations in thesame city have taken away the wreckage using theirown heavy equipment for construction. Thus, we havefound that local builders have started actions for therecovery and reconstruction immediately after thedisaster although they themselves have been damaged.
3. Repair and renovation of damaged housing by local
builders
The above-mentioned S corporation has, to thosehousings that become available by the repair orrenovation, acknowledged the state of the damage andconfirmed the owner’s intent to live there, thenexecuted the repair or renovation work soon after thedisaster. Shown in the figure is that process. There
were a lot of shortage in the material and parts to use

for the housing work, such as plyboard for framework,
heat insulation material, roof tile and so on as thematerial factories have been damaged. By that reason,full-scale construction work has just started at thebeginning of the April 2011. Another reason was thatdamaged people could just draw the scenario of thebudget encouraged by the public donation also aroundthat period.
4. Movement and current situation for the reconstructionof the housing
Coming from now is the areal full-scale recovery stage
realized by reconstruction of the housing and so on. As
the target of using the productive potentiality of local
builders in that period, approximately 360 groups of areal
recovery housing builders were organized in Iwate,
Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures. At the time of thisreport (February 2013), there found a few cases ofhousing reconstruction realized by such a group due tothe delay in housing land development except that partial
cases are seen undertaken by major housing makers. On
the other hand, as examples of model house construction
by the same group have appeared one by one, with theprogress of the high land development, the group inquestion is expected to become a powerful resource toundertake the housing reconstruction in damaged area.

Figure Flow of the repair/renovation of damaged
housings