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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Rajib Shaw inspects a tsunami-ravaged area of Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, during his visit
to Tohoku in early April. COURTESY OF IEDM, KYOTO UNIVERSITYCOMMUNITY

Disaster expert seeks better tsunami
defenseBetter data, training, personal responsibility key tosurvival, Indian-born Rajib Shaw says
By JANE SINGER
Special to The Japan Times

A town hall located several kilometers inland was the designated disasterevacuation site in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture. Immediately after themagnitude 9 earthquake hit Tohoku on the afternoon of March 11, a young
town employee broadcast an urgent evacuation order to local residents. Herbroadcasts continued until the tsunami hit, submerging the announcer, theevacuees and the hall itself.
Given tragic examples like this, one wonders: Could more have been done toanticipate the tsunami and lessen its impact? Or is it impossible, practicallyspeaking, to prepare for a natural disaster of this magnitude?
These are the questions that concern Rajib Shaw, 42, an associate professor
at the Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies at Kyoto University,
who specializes in disaster and environmental management.
Shaw leads a team of 20 professors and graduate students who help
communities in 17 Asian and African countries as far afield as Burkina Faso,

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Disaster expert seeks better tsunami defense | The Japan Times Online

Afghanistan, Indonesia and Vietnam prepare for natural disasters and theconsequences of climate change through education and community-basedplanning.
Shaw was born in Kolkata, India, and studied applied geology at Allahabad
University before receiving an education ministry scholarship in 1994 thatallowed him to continue his research at Yokohama National University.
A quick study in all things, Shaw had acquired a Ph.D. in applied geology, amaster's degree in science education and a pretty good grasp of Japaneseby 1997.
On Jan. 17, 1995, Shaw was staying at the laboratory in Yokohama for an
all-night experiment. "The television was on to help us stay awake. Early thatmorning I saw coverage of the Kobe earthquake that had hit at 5:46 a.m. I
remember the sight of fire and smoke everywhere. My professor later
explained that casualties might climb to several thousand."Many Japanese students in his lab volunteered their time to assist theaffected in Kobe. Shaw wanted to help as well, but with his poor Japanese hethought he would only be a burden. "I then decided that much as I enjoyedpure research, I wanted to do something that would involve people. After
getting my degree in 1997, I took a position with a Japanese consulting firmin the development field."
As it happened, his first assignment was to help three communities —Zigong, China; Bandung, Indonesia; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan — withearthquake preparedness. His team worked with academics, local
governments and community groups, and they included a local journalist tofoster less sensational but easily understood disaster-related publiccommunication.
At each site, technical experts created an earthquake scenario showing
which buildings and infrastructure were at risk of damage, while the othermembers came up with an action plan to reduce the risks. Shaw felt that hehad found his calling. The work allowed him to apply his training in pureresearch to identify and solve problems in the real world.
From 1999 to 2004, Shaw was with the United Nations Center for Regional
Development and a government earthquake research center in Kobe, where
he helped develop a master plan for earthquake and tsunami mitigation in theAsia-Pacific region. He also helped to coordinate disaster management, risk
assessment and community participation projects in 14 countries throughout
Asia.
"Usually the U.N. works with national governments, but in Kobe we saw thatthe first responders to a natural disaster are family, neighbors and local
government, so we need strong communication with local stakeholders," hesaid "We started several community-based disaster projects with local
nongovernmental organizations and local governments, and I convinced U.N.
officials to lend their support."
In 1998 Shaw married Tomoko, a Japanese architect who also worked on
disaster management projects throughout the developing world, and in 2005
they had a son, Aron. Shaw is now in Kyoto on weekdays and, when notcorrecting student papers and preparing meeting agendas on trans-Pacificflights, returns to the family home in Yokohama on weekends.
"I've found many similarities between Indian and Japanese cultures, including
respect for old people and a strong attachment to family," he said. "I've
become more attached to the country and the culture, and I feel more
Japanese in my thinking; in fact, I tend to speak to myself in Japanese."
Shaw proved his attachment by becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen in2007. "I had a natural feeling that I'm a part of this society."
He professed that he hadn't experienced any discrimination here from his
fellow citizens. "Maybe I'm just insensitive," he said laughing, "but I don't think
deeply about these things because there are many other things to do. ManyJapanese ask me why I took Japanese nationality, while others seempleased. Indian friends are accepting; they say, 'There are more than enoughIndians but not enough Japanese today.' "http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110423a1.html[4/24/2011 11:07:55 AM]

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Disaster expert seeks better tsunami defense | The Japan Times Online

Since April 2004 Shaw has been at Kyoto University, helping to train young
professionals in the new discipline of disaster risk management — formerly
the province of civil engineering but now regarded as a melding ofengineering and social solutions.
One current project monitors the recovery of two communities — one inSouthern India and another in Sri Lanka — that were decimated by the 2004
Indian Ocean tsunami.
Many of the coastal residents were resettled inland to create a coastal buffer
zone. "Many residents were fishermen dependent on coastal access, sosocial issues arise when they move inland. We're trying to understand how
these social lessons can be included in future planning."
Shaw's team is also involved in helping 36 Asian cities adapt to the heavy
rainfall, typhoons, and other impacts associated with climate change.
"In these at-risk communities we understand the problems, we even know
the solutions, but still we don't take action," he said. "The challenge is how toprioritize a low-probability but high-consequence event like a flood ortyphoon. After it occurs, perceptions are higher and people say, 'We havenever experienced this before.' After a disaster there's an initial recovery
phase of three to five years, then it's back to normal and the memory fades.
"Particularly when you're talking about problems related to the global
environment, it's hard for people to relate. We need to help individuals
prepare, then the community, the town and the region. We must breakdisaster planning down to the level of individual life and build a 'culture ofdisaster preparedness.'"This includes disaster education, either formal or in the home; school andfamily activities; and legislative measures, such as traffic penalties or a tax
exemption for retrofitting your house. It also includes use of hazard maps,
learning about previous disasters from the elderly, evacuation drills, andworking with community organizations as well as the local government."
Shaw toured the Tohoku region for five days in early April, and although hehas visited Aceh in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and many other postdisaster sites,
the destruction in Tohoku "was beyond my imagination," he said. The
enormous contrast between the coastal damage and the virtually unscathedareas in the hills showed that earthquake damage was limited, but thetsunami damage was huge, he said
"In some of these areas people are accustomed to tsunami threats so theydidn't take them seriously this time. In 1933 and 1960 there were major
tsunami, so old people have experienced them, but hearing about something
and actually experiencing it are different.
"An earthquake in Chile in February 2010 triggered a tsunami warning in
Tohoku but only 10 to 12 percent of the residents evacuated. Many people
even went to the beaches to see the tsunami. Coastal areas were inundatedwith waves up to 180 cm, although there were no fatalities.
"People make their own evacuation judgments based on their experience andawareness, and on whether they have the right information at the right time,"
Shaw said. "Nobody anticipated a 20-meter tsunami this time. People thought
it would be 1 to 2 meters high, and they underestimated the severity of theevacuation order."He noted that television networks and most local governments issued
tsunami warnings within four minutes of the earthquake, but that the actual
outcomes varied. Some of the coastal dykes were destroyed, but others
helped to minimize damage.
Communities that survived the tsunami with relatively smaller damage thanothers were better able to respond to residents' needs, Shaw said.
"In Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, local students had good disaster education in
their schools. They had just held an evacuation drill on March 3 in which theywent up into evacuation routes in nearby mountains, so most students
evacuated safely," although more than 1,300 residents of the city either diedor remain missing in the tsunami, Shaw said.

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Disaster expert seeks better tsunami defense | The Japan Times Online

In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, however, 74 of 108 children at anelementary school died "because they thought their school, the designatedevacuation site, was safe," he said.
In some cases, he said, parents went to the school following the earthquake
to get their children and returned to their homes, with disastrous results.
"Residents need more specific information on the height of the tsunami toencourage them to make correct decisions," he said.
Most of the communities had made hazard maps showing areas at risk in theevent of tsunami. Shaw said, however, that when maps were available fortsunami of both 4 and 8 meters in height, local residents may have only
received the map for a 4-meter tsunami because local governments lacked
the resources needed to take the specific actions called for by the other map.
"In the future we need to publish a hazard map for a worst-case scenario, but
this may raise the ire of local realtors," he said.
"Flat areas will need buffer zones and safe places for shelters, but plansneed to be customized," he said.
Pointing to the example of flood-prone Bangladesh, where each villager istasked with ensuring that elderly and other vulnerable neighbors haveevacuated, he added, "We need a strong volunteer network as well as an
infrastructure to bring the people to shelters. Governments have
responsibilities, but people must also take on responsibilities for themselves."
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