JSCE Journal of Disaster Factsheets, FS2024-E-0001, 2024

Road pavement cracks in Toge District, Monzen Town,
Wajima City, in the January 1st, 2024, Noto PeninsulaEarthquake, Japan
Kazuo KONAGAI1, Atsutoshi ONO2, Takashi TAKANAKA3, Tomonori OKI4, andKiyoharu HIROTA5
1Member of JSCE, Professor Emeritus, Inst., Industrial Science, University of Tokyo(Komaba 4-6-1, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan)
E-mail: konagai@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
2Research and Survey Department, Nakanihon Air Co., Ltd.
(Toyoyama, Nishi-Kasugai, Aichi 480-0202, Japan)
E-mail: aono@nnk.co.jp
3Tokyo Branch, Research and Survey Department, Nakanihon Air Co., Ltd.
(Kyobashi 3-7-5, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0031, Japan)
E-mail: takashi.takanaka@nnk.co.jp
4Niigata Branch, Research and Survey Department, Nakanihon Air Co., Ltd.
(Niigata Airport, Matsuhama, Higashi-ku, Niigata 950-0001, Japan)
E-mail: tomonori.oki@nnk.co.jp
5Researcher, Secretariat, International Consortium on Landslides(Tanaka-Asukai-cho 138-1, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8226, Japan)
E-mail: sbhirota@gmail.com

Key Facts
・ Hazard Type: Road pavement cracks
・ Date of the disaster: January 1st, 2024
・ Location of the survey (Lat. Lon., name or address): Monzen, Wajima City, Ishikawa Prefecture
・ Date of the field survey (if any): March 4th and 21st, 2024
・ Survey tools (if any): GPS・ Key findings: Strains produced in the ground are transmitted to road pavement, resulting in pavement cracks. The pattern of the quake-induced cracks observed in Toge District, Monzen Town ofWajima City, resembles that observed in the 2007 Noto Peninsula Earthquake.
Key Words: pavement crack, January 1st, 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake,next village to Kurosaki, was the hardest hit even in= 6.9).
the 2007 Noto Peninsula Earthquake (𝑀Thirty-three percent of the houses in Toge werefully and partially destroyed in the 2007 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, the highest percentage among theother municipalities in the epicentral area2). Given
this precedent case history, the authors surveyed
Toge Village to map pavement cracks and buckles onroads and compared them with those observed in the2007 Noto Peninsula Earthquake. The idea behind
this attempt was that the asphalt road pavement
would fracture due to the ground surface strain beneath it.

1. INTRODUCTION
The moment-magnitude 7.5 Noto Peninsula
Earthquake on January 1st, 2024, was the largest
earthquake ever to hit the Noto region since records
were kept in 1885. The most brutal hit was thenorthern part of the peninsula exposed to the Sea ofJapan. The remarkable ground uplift along the coast,
spanning about 85 kilometers through Shika,
Wajima, and Suzu in the northern part of thepeninsula, has led to about 200 meters-wide brush of
new coastline appearing1). The surface moved
upward as much as 4 meters at Kurosaki, Monzen
Town of Wajima City. This area, including Toge, the1Fig. 3Old river channel

Hakka RiverToge Village

Kurosaki Village
NotoPeninsulaFig. 2

Fig. 1 Terrain of Toge Village and its vicinity (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan)(1) Before the 2024
earthquake

2. GEOLOGICAL AND GEOMORPHOLOGICAL SETTING OF TOGEVILLAGEThe Hakka River flows through a valley bottom plainfrom east to west and discharges into the Sea of Japan(Fig. 1). The Toge village of Monzen Town near theHakka River mouth extends along the mainstream
over an alluvial fan of a small tributary of the Hakka
River. This tributary is short, only 2 km long. However, its longitudinal stream slope through the erodible hill terrain is very steep, reaching about 100 m/
2000 m, thus yielding a relatively large amount ofsediment runoff discharge. The 1/500,000 scale subsurface geological map “Anamizu, Togi, Tsurugiji”3)says the erodible hill terrain is partly landslide blocks
and conglomerate formation.
This amount of sediment runoff discharge has been
substantial enough to develop the alluvial fan, which
has long been pushing the mainstream of the Hakka
River away from its original course. The current
stream of the Hakka River has been improved to wind
gently around the end of the alluvial fan. However,its old meandering river channel remains immediately around the periphery of the sandy alluvial fan.
As said in the Introduction, the remarkable ground
uplift reaching 4 m at Kurosaki has caused a 200-m
broad brush of new coastline to appear, as shown inFig. 2.

(2) After the 2024
earthquake

Fig. 2 Coastline of Kurosaki Village (Aerial photos from the Geospatial Information Authority ofJapan): (1) before the 2024 earthquake, (2) on
January 11, 20242

(1) In 2024

(2) In 2007

Fig. 3 Pavement fractures observed in Toge Villag in: (1) 2024, and (2) 2007: Open circles and solid
circles with numbers in mm show tensile and compressional failure widths.
numbers in millimeters show tensile and compressional failure widths, respectively. Though discontinuities along which one side of the pavement has
moved relative to the other side exhibited variousmodes, not only simple tensions and compressions
but also strike slips and vertical offsets, the majority

3. PAVEMENT CRACKSFig. 3(1) shows the fresh pavement crack and crush
widths we observed in Toge Village on March 4thand 21st, 2024. The open and solid circles with3

pavement fractures indicates that the ground deformed similarly to those in past earthquakes. Nomatter the cause, this repeatable nature of ground deformation is essential for mapping the disaster recovery strategy.

are tension cracks (open circles) for the entire stretchof the examined roads. Compressional failures (solidcircles) are clustered near the alluvial fan's toe parts.
Fig. 3(2) shows the pavement crack and crush widths
we observed 14 years ago on April 7th, 2007, immediately after the March 25th, 2007, Noto Peninsula
Earthquake. The pavement fractures in 2007 are similar to those we observed in 2024 regarding their spatial distributions and relative widths, though the fractures in 2024 are more severe than those in 2007. The
similarity between Figs 3(1) and 3(2) indicates thatthe ground deformed little by little, likewise as in pastearthquakes. Since we saw sand ejecta around the toepart of the alluvial fan, re-liquefaction of the sand at
similar locations may have been one of the causes ofthe recurring ground deformations in Toge.

REFERENCES
1)

2)

3)

4. SUMMARY
4)

In 2007 and 2024, the Noto region was hit by upper6-level earthquakes, which resulted in severe devastation in their overlapping epicentral areas, including
Toge Village of Monzen Town in Wajima City. Road
pavement fractures in Toge Village were mapped inboth earthquakes and compared in this article. Thesimilarity between the spatial distributions of thePortal site of the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, Geospatial Information Authority of Japan,
https://www.gsi.go.jp/BOUSAI/20240101_noto_earthquake.html
Architectural Institute of Japan: Report on the Damage Investigation of the 2007 Noto-Hanto Earthquake and the2007 Niigataken Chuetu-oki Earthquake, Maruzen. Co., Ltd.
356p, 2010
1/500,000 scale subsurface geological map “Anamizu, Togi,Tsurugiji,” Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, andTourism.
https://nlftp.mlit.go.jp/kokjo/inspect/landclassification/land/5-1/prefecture17.html#prefecture17
Konagai, K., Ikeda, T., Takatsu, S., and Izutsu, T.: Geological and geomorphological settings and damage to civil infrastructures, Reporting Session of the damage caused by
the March 25, 2007, Noto Peninsula Earthquake, Japan Society of Civil Engineers,
https://www.jsce.or.jp/report/42/news3files/konagai20070329.pdf(Received March 25, 2024)4