2. Highlights of 2016/2017

2. Highlights of 2016/2017
2-1. ADRC study visit to the affected areas by
Kumamoto Earthquakes
2-1-1. Overview
On 14 and 16 April 2016, earthquakes occurred in the middle of Kyushu Island, in southwesternJapan, measuring a magnitude 7 (the highest level) on the seismic intensity scale of the Japan
Meteorological Agency (JMA). The quakes caused 161 deaths in Kumamoto prefecture and 8,369
houses were totally destroyed in Kumamoto and Oita Prefectures (as of 14 December 2016,
Emergency Disaster Response Headquarters). The direct economic losses are estimated at ¥2.4–4.6
trillion (Kumamoto Prefecture estimated \3.8 trillion).
ADRC has made maximum efforts to visit the affected areas in member countries by natural
disasters. So far, study visits together with ADRC member countries include the case after the
Gujarati earthquake in India in January 2001, and the case for the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004.
At the time of the Kumamoto Earthquakes, an ADRC survey team visited the affected site from
18-21 May 2016, two month after the occurrence of the events, in cooperation with relevantorganizations. ADRC compiled the overview of the earthquakes and damage based on the basic
information provided by relevant authorities and also shared the report among member countries.
Furthermore, Cabinet office, together with ADRC organized a study visit targeting for DRR
officials from ADRC member countries in December 2016 based on the previous surveys.

2-1-2. ADRC Steering Committee meeting in Kumamoto
Prior to the ADRC study visit to the affected areas by
the Kumamoto earthquakes, on December 19th inKumamoto City, an ADRC Steering Committee meeting
took place. The SC meeting, attended by 23 ADRC
member countries focused on future of ADRC and DRR
priorities for its member countries and actively exchanged
views towards its 20th anniversary in 2018.
Fig. 2-1-1 ADRC steering committee
meeting in Kumamoto

2-1-3. Study visit to the affected areas by the Kumamoto
ADRC study visit to the affected areas of the Kumamoto Earthquakes was organized on 19 to 20
December, 2016 and attended by 29 participants from 23 countries, and many academics andparticipants from the private sector in Japan.
During the two days’ study visit, a briefing session was organized in the morning, followed by the5relevant visits in the afternoon on both 1st and 2nd day. Day1 started with a key note lecture byProfessor Makoto Iokibe, chairman of the Advisory Committee for Recovery and Reconstruction of
Kumamoto, followed by a briefing by Kumamoto prefecture and that by Kyushu Regional
Development Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,
Transport and Tourism, MLIT. In the afternoon,
participants visited Mashiki Town that was one of thosedamaged most severely, and the collapsed Aso bridgearea under unmanned operation there.
Day 2 focused on Kumamoto castle, on which
Kumamoto city first provided a introductory briefing on
the damages on the cultural heritages, and three sub
session took place on emergency relief, evacuation andchallenges

facingevacuees,

andonrecovery,Fig. 2-1-2 Group photo the participants ofthe study visit

reconstruction and BBB. Member countries reported about their experiences and discussed actively
the four themes.

Day 1 morning : Status of the affected areas and DRR effort
Day one, 19th, December started with an opening remark by Professor Masanori Hamada, byrepresenting ADRC. Chairman of ADRC highlighted three key aspects of the Kumamoto
earthquakes. First, the previous strong quake followed by the main shock, secondly rescue andrecovery activities facing continuous aftershocks, and damages on cultural heritages. Ms.Setsuko
Saya, Director of Cabinet Office, Japan, then gave another opening speech and a presentation on thegovernment efforts facing the Kumamoto earthquakes by summarizing the report by Cabinet officetitled “Emergency relief and assistance for the life of the affected by learning from the Kumamoto
Earthquakes (December 20th 2016,).
1 Keynote speech : Professor Makoto Iokibe, “Japan facing megadisasters: Steps towards overcoming the challenges”.
Professor Makoto Iokibe, chair of the Reconstruction Design Council in Response to the Great
East Japan Earthquake, Chancellor, Prefectural University of Kumamoto, and President of
Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute who made efforts for recovery andreconstruction of Hyogo, made a key note speech titled “Japan facing mega disasters : Steps
towards overcoming the challenges”. Professor Iokibe has been working as the chair of theAdvisory Committee for Recovery and Reconstruction of Kumamoto, as well.
Professor Iokibe, after talking about the experiences of Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake and
the Great East Japan Earthquake, stressed the importance of learning from the lessons learnt fromthe disasters in the past. As Japan saw many mega disasters in its history, evidence based studies
on disasters in the past will constitute the basis of DRR system, facing recent growing threat ofwater related disasters. Considering the occurrence of the Great Hansin Awaji earthquake and the62. Highlights of 2016/2017
Great East Japan Earthquake in these decades, more intense earthquakes could happen in these 20
to 30 years. Impacts of earthquakes and tsunami in the future could however be reduced by taking
well into consideration of the following three points:
1) Getting better prepared against natural disasters by raising awareness and building capacity toovercome natural disasters
2) Building early alert system by using mobile phone and so on3) Learning from history and experiences in the past including those of “mutual help”, “pushmode assistance”, “creative recovery” or “Build back better”.
2 Presentations
1) Kumamoto Prefecture
Kumamoto prefecture then presented the overview of the Earthquakes and measures taken by
the prefecture including those for recovery and reconstruction. Mr. Honda, Director General on
Crisis management, Office of governor, first reported the nature and characteristics of the
Earthquakes compared to those of Great Hanshin Awaji, or the Great East Japan. The case of
Kumamoto is characterized by the two quakes of level seven in 28 hours, many aftershocks, large
share of the affected population amounting to 83 %, and the maximum share of evacuees
amounting to 10.3 % of the total population.
The prefecture gave positive evaluation regarding collaboration with relevant parties andprovision of temporary housing units by reflecting the evacuees’ opinion, while they find thatfurther efforts will be necessary regarding key DRR facilities including DRR centers, truck roads
and lifelines that had been affected. In addition, awareness rising targeting residents should havebeen more strengthened, lack of which has led to poor preparedness against natural disasters
among residents. Finally, Mr. Honda made a presentation on their efforts of recovery andreconstruction including their vision for reconstruction.
2) Kyushu Regional Development Bureau, MLIT “Relief and restoration effort of
the Aso Ohashi district landslide”
Kumamoto Earthquake Counter plan Office, Kyushu Regional Development Bureau, MLIT
reported about the status of recovery of the slopes significantly collapsed at the Aso Bridge area.
On 16th April, due to the main shock, large volume of sand extending 700 m length and 200 m
width collapsed, and Aso Bridge together with Japan railway line and National road no.57. Aso
Bridge directly supporting people’s life, widely used by tourists, should get recovered
immediately . In order to avoid secondary disaster; however, unmanned method applied at theoccasion of the Mount Unzen volcano eruption is used for removing sands left on the slopes.
Participants visited this area in the afternoon of Day1.
3) Extensive support to Kumamoto by Union of Kansai Governments
Mr. Hiroaki Okubo, Superintendent of Emergency Management, Hyogo Prefecture andDirector General, Region-wide Disaster Preparedness Office, Union of Kansai briefed about the7

support for Kumamoto made by the Union of Kansai. The Union of Kansai dispatched three
persons 90 minutes after the first quake already, opened soon after the main shock on-siteheadquarters in the Kumamoto Prefecture office, and started coordinating with Kyushu region
governors association regarding the recipients. By 19th July, they dispatched in total 6,948
officials except policemen, firemen, and medical staff, to the affected areas and provided relief
supplies and support staff.
They organized support teams including emergency and rescue team comprised of public school
faculty and staff known as “EARTH”, assistance for evacuation centres, medical support, and waste
treatment and sanitation. In addition, human resources were sent for housing damage assessment,
helpdesk services for citizens, and so on. He then raised the necessity of sharing of know-how,standardization of the activities, and collaboration with private sector based on the lessons
throughout the assistance for Kumamoto.

Day 1 afternoon : Study visits
1. Mashiki Town
Mashiki town, developed as a residential area of the city of Kumamoto and home to 34,600
population as of February,2017, was affected by the two quakes of level 7. Death toll including
those relevant amounted to 27 and 2,768 houses were totally destroyed, 3,033 partially destroyed.
Evacuees increased to reach 16,050 accommodated into 10 evacuation centers. From June 14th
they started to move to temporary housing amounting to 1,562 in 18 areas. There located also
community centers so as to avoid isolation of the residents.
From July 7th, the town started dismantling andremoving the houses assessed as half-damaged or more
severely damaged by the disaster certificate, andadopted a “Basic principles of Mashiki town recovery”
on the 6th July to present basic idea. During the visit,
participants visited the affected town hall, had a brief
walk in the most severely affected areas, and visited theFig. 2-1-3

Emergency Temporary House
Area Temporary multi-unit
apartments "Minna no Ie")

largest temporary housing area “Techono area” and a (Techno
community center, where they had a briefing anddiscussion.
2. Collapsed Aso bridge area
Participants visited the collapsed Aso Bridge area.
They had an on-site briefing on the operation to remove
unstable sand by using unmanned machine, and visited
also a small temporary office where they were remotely
operating the unmanned machines. Kumamoto branch
office also presented the plan for recovery including

Fig. 2-1-4 Landslides in Aso Bridge82. Highlights of 2016/2017
building of a new bridge.

Day 2 morning : Lessons learnt from member countries tosupport Kumamoto
1. Subsession 1 : Damage to cultural heritages and participatory
process for recovery through encouraging tourism
After a brief introduction by the delegate from Ministry of Home Affairs, Nepal, Mr. K.
Mishima, General Manager of Tourism and Exchange Department, City of Kumamoto reported
about the damage to Kumamoto castle and challenges for its recovery.
The castle, visited annually by 1.7million visitors is one of the most important tourist
destinations in Kumamoto, composed of various important cultural heritages. He summarized byusing photos the damages by the Earthquakes and challenges towards recovery. The Earthquakes
affected the stone walls, turrets , gates and tiles including those designated as the important
cultural heritages. The keys for recovery of the castle include: 1) Promoting recovery works byfocusing on safety as well as protection of cultural heritage and tourism, 2) Reinforcing the stone
walls and other walls by using both traditional methods and cutting edge technologies, and 3)
Developing routing well considering safety of tourists, designating evacuation passages andinstalling facilities for DRR. He says “It may take more than 20 years for perfect recovery, we
will thus accelerate delivery of measures so as to use the Castle as a resource for tourism.
Mr. Yang Dorji,Chief Programme Officer, Ministry of Home & Cultural Affairs, Bhutan, thenmade a presentation on the damages on cultural heritage by natural disasters in Bhutan, followedby Ms. Sang Khov, Deputy Secretary General, National Committee forDisaster Management

Council Minister, who talked about protection of cultural heritage, in particular, Angkor Wat,from natural disasters by controlling the number of tourists, training security guards, andawareness raising targeting tourists, in order to limit the damages caused by natural disasters.
2. Subsession 2 : Effective emergency response
Commissioner Mr. Wee Teck Eric Yap, Singapore Civil Defense Force moderated thesubsession and Philippines, Myanmar and Indonesia contributed to the session by provided
recent cases of disasters. First, assistant Secretary Rodolfo Demosthenes Centeno Santillan,
Office of Civil Defense, Philippines, presented the emergency relief measures against Typhoon
Haiyan in which existing plan or preparedness measures did not work due to the scale of thedisaster. Ms. Nilar Htun, Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, Myanmar briefed
about the DRR system in the country, followed by a report by Dr. Raditya Jati, BNPB, Indonesia
on the earthquake in Aceh on 17th December, 2016. He stressed that the availability of risk map
contributed to immediate response when the earthquake happened and that assistance by AHA
centre was available for coordination. At the end of this subsession, Ms. Setsuko Saya, Cabinet
Office asked the Philippines the organisations issuing evacuation order and the Philippines
replied that it would be governors. Vietnam asked whether emergency plans are prepared against

9

all the scales of typhoon. Philippines answered that plan is made for all types of typhoon
regardless of the scale.
3. Subsession 3 : Evacuation and rehabilitation : Facing societal changes
and increasing diversity
This session moderated by Mr. Badral Tuvshin, Chief, National Emergency Management
Agency of Mongolia, started with a presentation by Ms. Tomomi Katsuya, Deputy
Secretary-General, Kumamoto International Foundation on “Support for non-Japanese residents
and tourists throughout evacuation and recovery phases”. After the earthquakes, 200
non-Japanese people came to the international centre in Kumamoto City seeking for information
on transport measures to leave Kumamoto. Information disseminated after the disaster waslargely in Japanese, Centre thus replied in many other languages and collected and provided
information to non-Japanese people in need of information. Throughout the study undertaken
after the Earthquakes, they have learned that daily contacts with non Japanese people is a key for
effective emergency operation.
Mr. Md. Zakir Hossain Akanda, Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief, Bangladesh
compared his impression in Mashiki town and the experiences in his country. Dr. Yujiro Ogawa,
Representative of Bosai International and former ED of ADRC followed up the study visit of Day
1 to Mashiki town. He drew attention to emergency housing damage assessments for all thehouses after a disaster, which has three grades of dangerous, caution and checked. He pointed out
several problems for smooth issuance of disaster certificate, requesting payment of earthquake
insurance, and so on.
Finally, Associate Professor Akira Takagi, University of Kumamoto, who had opened together
with his students a volunteer based Café “Ohisama” in the Techno temporary housing area, in
Mashiki Town, briefed about his activities . The café was opened for the purpose of encouraging
activities by themselves, and supporting evacuating children by providing the space for children.
The activities have been supported by students’ voluntary activities and based on donation andsubvention. They changed however their policy and start charging the fee from the users of thecafé in order to continue the activities that require funding.
4. Theme 4 : Recovery, reconstruction and Build Back Better
Mr. Sena Srinath Miyanawala, Permanent Secretary to the Ministry, Sri Lanka, opened thesubsession as moderator, and Mr. Suporn Ratananakin, Disaster Management Specialist of
Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, Ministry of Interior, Thailand reported about
the flood in 2011 damaged also the worked heritage of Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya, surrounded by thethree rivers, left flooded for three months, was damaged by erosion and salt damage. More than
100 historical monuments were affected, which raised significant concerns among the experts.
The second speaker, Mr. Vigen Harutyunyan, Head of Department, Data Acquisition
Processing and Analysis, Center of Seismic Hazard Assessment, Western Survey for Seismic
Protection, Ministry of Emergency Situation briefly explained about the damages caused by the10

2. Highlights of 2016/2017
Spitak earthquake in 1988 including the major factor bringing about the damages, which
includes absence of construction standard, leading to poor architectural method.
During the discussion, Indonesia asked Thailand about the indirect damages over thecommunities located in Ayutthaya and build back better. Mr. Ratananakin, Thailand replied thatthey have a plan to relocate the communities outside Ayutthaya, as well as the importance ofawareness raising about the value of Ayutthaya and provision of job opportunities. At the end,
participants shared the situation in member countries regarding the gaps between the reality andexpectation due to the time necessary for recovery.

Day 2 afternoon : Status of Kumamoto Castle after the
Earthquakes
Afternoon of Day 2 was dedicated to the visit of the Kumamoto castle site that was closed after
the disaster, thanks particularly to the city of Kumamoto. Regarding Kumamoto Castle, amongst
all, wooden turrets of Udo and Higashijuhakken, Fukai gate and so on are designated as “national
important cultural properties”, and the Kumamoto castle site
including ramparts designated as national “Special historic site.
The

Earthquakes

culturalaffected

13“national

important”monuments” leading to significant damages

including collapse of the building and walls. In order toaccelerate recovery works that may last more than 20 years, along term plan will be adopted in the coming fiscal year. The
visit provided

precious opportunities for the participants toenter the site of the affected cultural properties, where they saw,
for example, the Iidamaru-gokai turret located on a collapsed
stone wall, dependant on the only one pillar surviving the

Fig. 2-1-5 Observation on
Kumamoto Castle

Quakes, and sustained by a heavy operational vehicle.

Towards the future
During the visit, one of the focuses was longer term participative recovery by involving
tourists from abroad as well as from Japan, regarding recovery of Kumamoto. Good practices ofparticipative recovery through tourism and wide participation by citizen include, amongst all, thecase of DRI after the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake, Sanriku railroad after the Great East Japan
Earthquake in Japan, while cases of abroad include New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina, andthe case of Mt. Pinatubo. It will be important to explore further various possibilities ofparticipative recovery. Themes that should be studied further, based on the outcome of the study
visit include:Sharing disaster experiences and disaster educationEvacuation friendly to vulnerable people and challenges



Possibility of disaster tourism for the reconstruction of affected areasImpact on the supply chain of Kumamoto, Kyushu, and the Asian region

11

BCP targeting local governments and small and medium-sized enterprises

Strengthening of local DRR information infrastructure by using cutting-edge technology
such as satellite imagery and ICT equipments.

2-2. Promotion of World tsunami awareness day
2-2-1. Background of ADRC Tsunami DRR workshops
Based on the UN Resolution designating November 5th as the World Tsunami Awareness Day, a
new series of awareness raising activities have been initiated by UNISDR, government of Japan,
and many other relevant countries and international organizations. ADRC, together with Cabinet
Office had long been undertaken Tsunami DRR since the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 by
dispatching teams to investigate the damages in collaborating with ADRC counterparts andpublished awareness raising material of “Inamurano-hi” in more than 10 languages.
In order to further promote tsunami DRR and the World Tsunami Awareness Day, in the fiscal
year 2016, two workshops on tsunami DRR were held, one in Lima, Peru and another in Krabi,
Thailand for the purpose of sharing lessons learnt from tsunami in the past and discussing futurechallenges towards effective tsunami disaster risk reduction through multi-sectoral andinter-disciplinary efforts.The former highlighted effects of tsunami on economy and supply chain as
well as tsunami DRR policies, while the latter addressed the challenges at local and community
level facing tsunami.

2-2-2. Workshop focusing on tsunami DRR policies at national
level Tsunami Disaster Risk Reduction in APEC economies
The workshop was organized by ADRC in collaboration with INDECI, Peru and Cabinet Office,Japan, back to back APEC emergency preparedness working grope, EPWG meeting during August
15-16, in Lima.The purpose of the workshop included:
1) Identifying the status of anti-tsunami policies and measures2) Discussing major challenges
3) Strengthening partnership with private sector in promoting anti-tsunami measures.
It was attended by USA, Vietnam, Chile, Philippines, Chinese Taipei, Thailand as well as Peru
and Japan. Participants discussed awide range of tsunami DRR policies,
challenges and trans border effects
through supply chain. Private sector
in Peru and JICA also provided
inputs on their tsunami DRR efforts.
Fig. 2-2-1 Photo on Conference12