Landslides inducedby typhoon Hagibis in
Tomioka, GunmaGADRI
ACTIONS

Tropical Cyclone Idai, Zimbabwe

Winter 2019
Volume 10— Number 1
Ridgecrest, CA,
Earthquakes

GADRI Booth and Session at
the World Bosai Forum 20191

Dear Member of GADRI,
In this issue, we bring various reconnaissance and disaster reports shared by ourmembers covering hurricane Dorian in the US, typhoons in Japan, Ridgecrest
earthquake, tropical cyclone Idai, and other information on GADRI activities.

Contents

During 2019, GADRI were quite active. To start with,• the 4th Global Summit of Research Institutes for Disaster Risk Reduction: Increasing
the Effectiveness and Relevance of our Institutes was held at the Disaster Prevention
Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan from 13 th to 15th March
2019. The summit specifically focussed on the contributions to the contextualizationof the Science and Technology Roadmap.
• The 2nd GADRI General Assembly was held on 15 March 2019 at the Granvia Hotel
Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan.
• GADRI Board of Directors and Advisory Board continued to meet face-to-face inKyoto In March 2019 and during various online sessions throughout the year.

• Hurricane

Dorian—StEER—Excerpts fromthe Preliminary Virtual
Reconnaissance
Report• Typhoon

Hagibis—StEER—Excerpts fromthe Event Briefing• GADRI actively participate at the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group (STAG)
and the Global Risk Assessment Framework (GRAF) of UNDRR with GADRISecretariat and many members involved in various working groups.

• Excerpt• Under Disaster and Risk Research: GADRI Book Series, the books on Disaster
Resilience and the Proceedings of the 3rd Global Summit in March 2017 are sent toSpringer Japan for publication..

• Disaster• Quarterly newsletter, GADRI Actions continued to be published with contributions
from the GADRI community.
• GADRI Annual Report 2018 was published. We started to gather information for
GADRI Annual Report 2019.
• GADRI held a session on Contributions to the Science and Technology Roadmap at
the World Bosai Forum 2019 held at Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan from 9 to 12
November 2019.
• GADRI also site visited European Commission, Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC), in
Ispra, Italy in November 2019 to initiate the discussions and preparations for the 5 th
Global Summit of GADRI to be hosted at EC-JRC from 15 to 17 March 2021. Do
save-the-dates of the GADRI 5th Global Summit to be held in Ispra, Italy from 15 to
19 March 2021.

from
the
Landslides Induces by
Typhoon Hagibis 2019
ReportTyphoon Hagibis• Ridgecrest,

CA
Earthquake—StEER—
ExcerptsfromtheVirtualAssessment
Structural Team report• Tropical Cyclone Idai,

Zimbabwe• GADRI Session at the

World
2019

Bosai

• Our congratulations to Prof. Andrew Collins, Chair of the GADRI Board of Directors
for being selected as the recipient of the 2019 DPRI Award.
Without your support we cannot continue on this mission to prevent new disasters andto work on reducing existing disaster risks at all levels. It takes collective efforts to workon strengthening resilience to disasters and build back better.
We take this opportunity to thank all of you for being part of GADRI, and wish you all
the very best during the holiday season and the New Year.
Hirokazu Tatano and GADRI Secretariat

Photos were taken from the disaster reports shared by members of GADRI. Credit to the photos can be found in
the respective articles.
GADRI Actions is designed, formatted and edited by Hirokazu Tatano and Wilma James.

2

on

Forum

Excerpts from the StEERPRELIMINARY VIRTUAL
RECONNAISSANCEREPORT (PVRR)
Report shared by Prof. Khalid Mosalam, Director, PEER, University of California, Berkeley, highlights only the
Executive Summary and the Introduction.
For the full report, please visit the following link: https://www.steer.network/

Photo from the main report—
Figure 4.7. Aerial photo of thedamage from Dorian at Marsh
Harbour on Great Abaco Island,
Bahamas. Note the surviving
commercial
andindustrial
buildings with minor roof damage.
[The large building in the center islocated at 26.532695 / 77.062676]. The photo was taken
facing SW. (Source: CNN)

Virtual Assessment Structural Team (VAST) Lead:
Tracy Kijewski-Correa, University of Notre Dame

HURRICANE DORIAN

Virtual Assessment Structural Team (VAST) Authors:

September 1, 2019(in alphabetical order)
Prethesha Alagusundaramoorthy, University of Kentucky
Mohammed Alsieedi, University of Florida
Shane Crawford, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Mikael Gartner, Consultant Humanitarian Engineer
Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto, University of Kentucky
YeongAe Heo, Case Western Reserve University
Henry Lester, University of South Alabama
Justin D. Marshall, Auburn University
Laura Micheli, Catholic University of America
Harish Kumar Mulchandani, Birla Institute of Technology & Science
David O. Prevatt, University of Florida
David Roueche, Auburn University

Released: September, 10,
2019
NHERI DesignSafe Project ID:
PRJ-2549

PRELIMINARY VIRTUAL RECONNAISSANCEREPORT (PVRR)
Click on the link to view the fullreport: https://www.steer.network/

Virtual Assessment Structural Team (VAST) Editors:(in alphabetical order)
Khalid Mosalam, University of California, Berkeley
Ian Robertson, University of Hawaii at Manoa
3

Photo from the main report—Figure 2.2. Band 13 Infrared from GOES-16 as Dorian makes landfall
near (left) Great Abaco, Bahamas at 1800 UTC and (right) Grand Bahamas at 0300 UTC (imagery
captured via CIRA/RAMMB).

Executive Summary
On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian madelandfall on Elbow Cay in the Bahamas at 16:40 UTC
with sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), wind
gusts up to 225 mph (360 km/h), and a centralpressure of 910 mb, tying Dorian with the 1935
Labor Day hurricane for the strongest sustained
winds observed in a landfall in the Atlantic Basin.
Shortly thereafter, Dorian made a second landfall in
the Bahamas at Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco
Island before continuing westward across Grand
Bahama Island. After nearly two days pummelingGrand Bahama Island, setting records for the longest
duration over land at a Category 5 intensity, Dorian
approached the US in a weakened state with its
most notable impacts confined to flooding andtornadoes in the Carolinas. The devastation to the
Bahamas is staggering and driven in large part bystorm surge, in excess of an estimated 20 feet above
mean sea level in some locations. While dozens
have been confirmed dead at the time of this report’s
release, the storm made landfall in informal
settlements on Great Abaco Island that were home
to a large number of undocumented migrants.
Considering this along with the large number of yet
accounted for documented citizens suggests thedeath toll is likely to substantially rise and may never
be confirmed. Meanwhile, the survivors face a widespread humanitarian crisis with significant food andwater deficits affecting more than 60,000 residents of
Abaco and Grand Bahama Islands.
Preliminary losses (insured and uninsured) are
estimated at $7B, not yet accounting forinfrastructure losses. Rapid assessments suggestthat more than 13,000 houses, or about 45% of thehomes in Grand Bahama and Abaco, were likely
severely damaged or destroyed. Significant impacts
to healthcare facilities, airports, roadways and power
4

infrastructure in Grand Bahama and Abaco islands
have also been extensively documented. The full
extent of damage to infrastructure in this event islikely obscured by the massive debris field instigatedby Dorian’s storm surge as well as the limited accessto some of the most heavily affected areas.
Specifically, the damage to major harbors andairstrips has posed significant logistical challenges
for rescue, evacuation, recovery and humanitarianefforts currently unfolding across the two majoraffected islands, as well as a number of smaller
islands and cays.
Hurricane Dorian thus offers the opportunity toinvestigate a powerful storm’s impact over multiple
geographies. The storm’s slow evolution andsustained intensity presented numerous challenges
in forecasting and preparation and imposed
incredible stresses upon the built and naturalenvironments as well as its victims. While in no way
diminishing Dorian’s impact on the Carolinas, thecareful examination of properties in the Bahamaswith little to no damage in this record breaking event
can serve as an important validation of design andconstruction practices. This Preliminary Virtual
Reconnaissance Report (PVRR) represents
StEER’s first step in the process of learning from thisdisaster by (1) providing an overview of Hurricane
Dorian’s impact on the built environment, including
the effects of its hurricane-force winds, coastal storm
surge
and
cyclone-induced
tornadoes,(2)
overviewing the regulatory environment andconstruction practices in the Bahamas, (3)summarizing the preliminary reports of damage to arange of building and infrastructure classes, (4)establishing current conditions in the Bahamas withrespect to access and services, and (5) providing
recommendations to inform the continued study ofthis event.

1.0 Introduction
On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian madelandfall on Elbow Cay in the Bahamas at 16:40 UTC
with sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), wind
gusts up to 225 mph (360 km/h), and a centralpressure of 910 mb, tying Dorian with the 1935
Labor Day hurricane for the strongest sustained
winds observed in a landfall in the Atlantic Basin(Fedschun, 2019). Shortly thereafter, Dorian made asecond landfall in the Bahamas at Marsh Harbour on
Great Abaco Island before continuing westward
across Grand Bahama Island, where the storm’s
pace slowed to 1 mph. After nearly two days
pummeling Grand Bahama Island, setting records
for the longest duration over land at a Category 5
intensity, Dorian approached the US in a weakened
state, hovering between Category 2-3 intensity as it
continued its slow trek parallel to the Atlantic coastof Florida the week of September 2.

By September 5, the effects of the storm were
evident in the Carolinas, as Dorian continued to
weaken to a Category 1, just brushing the coast of
North Carolina, about 35 miles southeast ofWilmington. While not directly landfalling in the US,
Dorian spawned tornadoes, triggered flash flooding,and delivered hurricane-force winds and lifethreatening storm surge as it continued its slow trek
along the North American Atlantic Coast toward
Canada. Hurricane Dorian is part of a larger trend oftropical cyclones with reduced forward speeds
caused by disruptions in the atmospheric circulation
patterns that steer these weather systems, attributed
to the warming of the atmosphere (Hall and Kossin,2019). Devastating effects of stalled hurricanes likethe remnants of Harvey and now Dorian are
speculated to become increasingly common. Whilestates from Florida all the way to Virginia have hadsome effect from Dorian, the sections that follow will
focus on the hurricane’s impact in the Bahamas, aswell as the storm’s implications for South and North
Carolina.
To read the full report, click on the link :www.steer.network/

Photo from the main report—Figure 1.2. Preliminary loss estimates: total (insured and uninsured)losses to residential, commercial and industrial properties. Infrastructure and auto losses notincluded (KCC, 2019).

5

https://

Excerpts from the StEER
Event Briefing on Typhoon
Hagibis, 12 Oct. 2019
Report shared by Prof. Khalid Mosalam, Director, PEER, University of California, Berkeley, highlights only the
Executive Summary and the Introduction.

Figure 3: Wave Striking breakwater in Kiho, Japan(Source: Toru Hanai/Associated Press, New YorkTimes, 2019)

For the full report, please visit thefollowing link: https://www.steer.network/and http://gadri.net/
resources/2019/10/event-briefingon-typhoon-hagibis-and-earthquake-on-12-october-2019.html

6

Excerpts from the Report

Landslides Induced by Typhoon
Hagibis, 2019
By Chigira et al. (Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitute, Kyoto University)
To view the full report visit: http://gadri.net/resources/2019/11/landslides-induced-by-typhoon-hagibis-2019.html

Locations of fatal landslides induced bytyphoon Hagibis
Tomioka: 4:32 pm 12 Oct•

Pyroclastic fall•

3 fatalities

Marumori: about 10:30 pm 12 Oct•

Weathered granite•

4 fatalities

Magino: 9:45 pm 12 Oct•

Typhoon Hagibis crossed the Japanese Islands
from 12 to 13, October 2019, and brought recordbreaking rainfall and strong wind.

•This typhoon induced river floods and landslides
in eastern Japan and caused tremendous
damage with 93 fatalities and 3 missing.

7

•

•

Andesite lava and volcanic

•

soil

•

2 fatalities

This paper reports the characteristics of 3 fatallandslide areas, referring to the possibility of theirprediction.

Landslides induced by typhoon Hagibis in Tomioka,
Gunma
19 October, 2019
By Masahiro Chigira, Division of Geohazards, DPRI, Kyoto University
Location: Takumi, Tomioka, Gunma Prefecture

Rainfall at Fujioka (AMEDAS) 15 km east of Tomioka• Occurrence: 4:30 pm, 12 October, 2019•

3 fatalities

Made from the data of Japan Meteorological Agency（http://www.data.jma.go.jp/obd/stats/etrn/index.php5）

Landslides occurredLandslides occurred
only on these twoslopes.

8Materials that slid were from the Asama volcano

Summary

Points to be noted•

Landslide occurred on gentle slopes with 20°angle
on a margin of a terrace.

••

Slid materials were pyroclastic fall deposits up to 3
m thick on less permeable mudflow deposits.

Slid materials and sliding horizons were of
pyroclastic materials from the Asama volcano,which must be distributed around the landslide
slopes.

•Sliding surface was made in the lower part of AsMP (pumice), which was weathered to be clayeymaterials.

•

The reason why only these slopes slid is assumed
to be:•••

As-MP layer was eroded underground at the rim of
the terrace, where bedding dip becomes steeper
toward downslope.

Beds warped convex upward, steepening
downslope.

•This underground erosion formed piping holes,
where water pressure could have been build-up to
trigger the landslides.

So, the groundwater velocity must have been
faster downslope, which facilitatedunderground erosion.

•

The vegetations on the landslide slopes seemto be less than the surrounding.

•

The underground erosion we observed suggeststhat water springs must have been at the foot of
the slopes. Behaviour of the spring might havebeen a key for the landslide prediction.

To view the full report visit: http://gadri.net/resources/2019/11/landslides-induced-by-typhoon-hagibis-2019.html

9Disaster Report2019 Typhoon Hagibis (No.1)
By Shiomi Yumi and Koji Suzuki, Asian Disaster
Research Center (ADRC), Kobe, Japan
1. Overview
On 12 October 2019, a large and powerful
typhoon, Hagibis, locally named as Typhoon
No.19 made a landfall in Shizuoka Prefecture,
about 100 km southwest of Tokyo, passing
through eastern and north-eastern regions until
early morning of 13 October. Central and northernparts of the country were severely affected bystrong winds and heavy rainfall and subsequent
floods and geohazards.
From 24 to 25 October 2019, low pressure
passed through western, eastern and northern
regions along the Pacific coast, bringing anotherheavy rainfall in the Pacific coast of Kanto andTohoku regions, especially Chiba and Fukushima
Prefectures. The rainfall resulted in floods andgeohazards again, causing human and physicaldamages to the typhoon-hit areas.
According to the report of the Cabinet Office, as of 20
November 2019, 101 persons were killed or went
missing while 481 persons were injured. About 2,400
houses were totally collapsed and over 33,000
houses were damaged. Furthermore, some 50,000
houses were inundated *.
* The figures include data of the impact of heavy rainon 24 to 26 October 2019

2. Outline of Typhoon Hagibis
Typhoon Hagibis was formed on 6 October in thesouth of Minamitori Island, developing into large andstrong typhoon, with its central pressure at 915hPa
and maximum sustained
winds at 55m/s. When it landed on Izu Peninsula,
Shizuoka Prefecture on 12 October with the strengthof 955hPa, maximum 40m/s, categorized as strong in
the country, the area within its 600km-radius from thetyphoon center was forecast as strong wind.
The typhoon brought about heavy rainfalls in wide
areas of Kanto (eastern) and Tohoku (north-eastern)

10

Figure 1. Total Precipitation from 10 – 13 October(Source: Japan Meteorological Agency)
regions of the country, where rainfalls exceeded pastrecords in hourly, daily and total precipitation in morethan 120 areas. For example, in Hakone, Kanagawa
Prefecture, total precipitation reached 1001.5 mm.
Also, record high waves and storm surges wereobserved mainly in the Pacific coast.

3. Early Warning:With the typhoon approaching, Japan Meteorological
Agency (JMA) started to issue Tropical Cyclone
Information, forecast and warning and advisory, as
well as information on landslide, inundation, flood etc.
Heavy Rain Emergency Warning, its highest alertlevel was issued to Shizuoka, Kanagawa, Tokyo,
Saitama, Gunma, Yamanashi, Nagano, Ibaraki,
Tochigi, Niigata, Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate
prefectures on 12 and 13 October.
4. Evacuation
Followed by JMA’s information, municipalities issued
Evacuation Order to over 2.1 million people in 11
prefectures and Evacuation Advisory to over 4.3
million people in 16 prefectures.
It is reported that some 219,000 people actually
evacuated to evacuation shelters.

- Damages to
Properties: Dueto the typhoon,
many
criticalinfrastructuresandlifelines
suffered serious
damages,causingsuspensionofservices such as
loss of electricity
inmaximum
521,540 houses
and suspensionof water supply
tomaximum
167,986 houses.
7. Government
Response

Others include Aomori (91), Akita (77), Yamagata (300),
Ishikawa (4), Yamanashi (343), Gifu (29), Aichi (75), Mie (83),
Osaka (2) and Yamaguchi (2)5. Impacts
Flooding:
River overflows and damages to embankments andriver facilities occurred, causing floods in many areas
causing human and physical damages. According toMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism(MLIT), river embankments collapsed at 140 areas in
71 rivers. Total inundation area reached 25,000 ha.

At the onset of the disaster, Emergency Disaster
Management Headquarters was established on 13
October 2019. Due to the severity of the disaster,Disaster Relief Act was applied to 390 municipalities in
14 prefectures. Also it was designated as disaster ofextreme severity under the Act on Special Financial
Support to Deal with Designated Disaster of Extreme
Severity on 29 October 2019.
References•

Cabinet Office of Japan (Japanese), Situation of2019 Typhoon Hagibis - http://www.bousai.go.jp/
updates/r1typhoon1 9/index.html

Sediment disaster:•Many sediment disasters occurred triggered by heavy
rainfall. According to MLIT, 954 cases were reported
including 423 debris flows, 44 landslides and 487 slope
failures in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima, Tochigi, Gunma,
Saitama,
Chiba,
Ibaraki,Tokyo,
Kanagawa,
Yamanashi, Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka, Ishikawa,Akita, Aomori, Mie and Wakayama prefectures.

Japan Meteorological Agency—The Heavy Rain
Event by Typhoon Hagibis in October 2019 Portal—http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/201910_Heavy
rain/2019_Heavyrain.html•

Geospatial Information Authority of Japan Aerial
photos and estimated inundation area - https://www.gsi.go.jp/BOUSAI/R1.taihuu19g ou.html•

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport andTourism—About Situations by 2019 Typhoon
Hagibishttp://www.mlit.go.jp/saigai/
saigai_191012.h tml•

Asian Disaster
www.adrc.asia/•

Disaster Information- https://www.adrc.asia/
view_disaster_en.php?
NationCode=392&Lang=en&Key=2357

6. Damages
Typhoon Hagibis and subsequent low pressure caused
tremendous damages to human and properties.
- Damages to Human Lives and Houses: Due to thetyphoon 98 persons lost lives and 3 went missing. 40
persons were seriously injured and 441 persons wereslightly injured. As for houses, 2,419 houses weretotally collapsed and 16,331 sustained 50% damages
while another 17,414 were partially damaged.

11

Reduction

Center—https://Excerpts from the StEER
Ridgecrest, CA Earthquake VAST Report
This report, shared by Prof. Khalid Mosalam, Director, PEER, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, highlights only the Executive Summary and theIntroduction.
Click on the link to view the full report: https://www.steer.network/

Damaged mobile home in Ridgecrest, CA during the M 6.4 earthquake. Photo by
Darla A. Baker / The Californian.

12

Photo from the main report—Figure 17. Two houses caught fire in Ridgecrest after the M 6.4 event (San

Executive Summary
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake with a depth of 10.7
km occurred in San Bernardino County, CA on
July 4, 2019. The epicenter was located 12 km
south west of Searles Valley. On July 5, 2019, a
7.1 magnitude earthquake occurred near thesame location and at a depth of 17 km. It is notedthat the earthquakes occurred in a fairly remotearea in the Mojave Desert region of eastern
California. The earthquakes were felt strongly in
the China Lake-Ridgecrest area, and more
broadly from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The 6.4
magnitude earthquake was preceded by several
foreshocks and followed by hundreds ofaftershocks. The maximum Peak GroundAccelerations (PGA) of the 6.4 and 7.1
magnitude earthquakes were 0.38g and 0.48g,
respectively. In this report, the PGA residuals are
estimated using the ASK14 GMPE in terms of thenumber of standard deviations with respect to themedian model, which correlates to structural
response due to earthquake ground motions.
The impact of the two earthquakes on the city of
Ridgecrest demonstrated its resiliency as it
recovered rapidly where many restaurants andgas stations are back up and running. There wasvery little structural damage, even from thesecond stronger earthquake of M 7.1, except forthetypically
vulnerable
buildings(e.g.
unreinforced masonry structures and mobile
homes). However, there were substantial nonstructural and content losses. Fortunately, both
earthquakes occurred during a holiday weekend,which meant that schools were not in session andmost offices were not operational during the13

events. If it had not been a holiday and theseschools and office spaces would have been fully
occupied or the earthquake occurred in a more
urban area, fatalities/injuries due to these nonstructural damages could have been larger. As acommunity, we have to be prepared for thosescenarios as well. Once again, these twoearthquakes have proven the need to improve
our regulations when it comes to the design of
non-structural components.
Moreover, some utilities for electricity and water
distribution suffered from distress. On the other
hand, transportation systems and bridges
suffered none to minor damage with effective andrapid repair actions.
The other city that was impacted the most is
Trona, which did not perform as resilient as
Ridgecrest where the city remained dysfunctional
up to the time of writing this report. There weremore damaged structures, mostly from the effects
of ground failure and possibly strong site
response related to soft sediments. The town
suffered from significant loss of water where its
main water pipes fractured due to fault rupture
and lateral spreads.
This report overviews the hazard characteristicsof the July 4 and 5, 2019 Ridgecrest, California M
6.4 and M 7.1 earthquakes, the regulatory
context and emergency response, the impacts ofthese earthquakes, and current conditions by
collocating publicly-reported information. This
Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR) represents the first product of StEER’slarger coordinated response to this event,informing and supporting other research teams
seeking to learn from this disaster.

Introduction
On July 4, 2019 at approximately 10:33 am PDT, amagnitude 6.4 earthquake with a depth of 10.7 km
occurred in a remote area of San Bernardino
County, CA. The epicenter was located 12 km
south west of Searles Valley at coordinates of
35.71°N and 117.51°W. On July 5, 2019 at 8:19
pm, approximately 34 hours after the firstearthquake, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake occurred
near the same location, with coordinates of 35.77°N
117.61°W. The 7.1 magnitude earthquake had adepth of 17 km. Since the events were not close tourban areas, the damage experienced by buildings
and other infrastructure was not extensive.
However, this earthquake sequence is quite
important as it includes the two largest earthquakesthat occurred in Southern California in the past two
decades. It provides many opportunities to learn
about the following, among several other useful
lessons: a) the earthquake sequence characterizedby two large magnitude earthquakes one day apart,and relevantly the large magnitude foreshock
scenario, b) the performance and impact of the
Earthquake Early Warning and ShakeAlertLA
systems, c) the expected performance in futureearthquakes of pre-1980 non-ductile reinforced
concrete buildings, the pre-1980 soft-first story
buildings, the water system infrastructure, and thetelecommunications infrastructure, which wereidentified as four areas of seismic vulnerability by
the LA Mayoral Seismic Task Force, d) the efficacyof the adopted retrofit techniques in improving
structural response, e) the performance of various
structures, including school buildings, hospitals,

large industrial facilities, regional airports, andmobile homes, f) the significance of non-structural
damage, g) the ground motion characteristics, andh) the community resilience in terms of the durationof power outages, mobile phone network access,infrastructure repairs, etc.
StEER further hopes to use this event to exercise
protocols, procedures, policies and workflows that
StEER will be developing over the next year incollaboration with the wider hazards community
including the Natural Hazards Engineering
Research Infrastructure (NHERI) and othermembers of the Extreme Events Reconnaissance
Consortium.
The first product of the StEER response to the2019 Ridgecrest, California Earthquakes is thisPreliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report(PVRR), which is intended to:
1. provide an overview of the hazard characteristics
2. introduce the regulatory and disaster responsecontext for these events
3. summarize the preliminary reports of damage towide-ranging infrastructure
4. review StEER’s event strategy in response tothese earthquakes
5. enhance situational awareness to guide
subsequent missions conducted by StEER and theengineering reconnaissance community.
Please visit the following link for the fill report:
https://www.steer.network/

It should be emphasized that all results herein are preliminary and based on the rapid assessment of publicly
available online data within 3-4 days of these events. Damage assessments discussed herein are basedlargely on the judgement of the authors without access or with very preliminary and limited access to additional aerial imagery and ground-truthing.

Photo from the main
report—Figure 1.
Epicenters of the two
Ridgecrest earthquakes
and Shakemaps [Left: M
6.4 event and right: M 7.1
event] (USGS, 2019a;
USGS, 2019b)

14

Tropical Cyclone Idai
Lessons learned and the way forward for
Africa Alliance for Disaster ResearchInstitutions (AADRI)
By Prof. Desmond Manatsa

Chair, AADRI; and Dean, Faculty of Science and Engineering
Bindura University of Science, Zimbabwe

The once thriving Kopa Business Centre that was completely destroyed by Cyclone Idai

15

Several months have passed since Tropical Cyclone
Idai hit Zimbabwe and leaving behind a trail ofdestruction and casualties unprecedented of any
natural disaster in Zimbabwe or even in southern
Africa’s modern history. The number of those deadand the devastation it inflicted on property and theenvironment was far more than what the cyclone
caused in Mozambique where it made landfall when
it still retained much higher destructive power fromthe Indian Ocean. Then what could be the reason
that exposed our nation to such a precarious state tothis cyclone? Media and various platforms proposed
many theories, stories have been told both of naturaland supernatural nature to try to explain the possible
causes which led to this catastrophe. The human’s
most sharpened talent of apportioning blame whilst
proffering little or no solution was also not spared.
However, what is important to the people of
Chimanimani and Zimbabwe at large is to remove
the fear that this calamity might happen again in
future. The most essential undertaking at thisjuncture is to systematically extract lessons from thecyclone’s impacts that can catapult us to a state
where we can live in harmony with this natural
hazard while harnessing the ‘positives’ and reducing
the associated risks. Though not exhaustive, here
we examine the lessons which could be derived from
Cyclone Idai’s extraordinary impact before
examining the way forward from a national action
research perspective under the banner of the Africa
Alliance for Disaster Research Institutions (AADRI).
Physical Vulnerabilities associated with Tropical
Cyclone Idai
The tropical cyclone made landfall over the
Mozambique coast, more than 200km away from theeastern border with Zimbabwe, on the 14th of March
2019, before slowly moving to hit Chimanimani at
about 7:00 pm the following day on Friday. As
expected with tropical cyclones when they makeland fall, their potential destructive force in terms
wind speed and amount of deposited rainfall isseverely curtailed as it moves inland due todecrease in ‘fuel input to the cyclone engine’. The
enhanced smoothness and evaporation from the sea
surface waters offer conducive environment for the
cyclone to increase in strength while the land
surface friction and reduced surface evaporationfrom the relatively dry land tend to suffocate thecyclone thereby killing it gradually. But despite morelead time to prepare for the cyclone and reduced

16

force of potential damage we still see that
Mozambique had far less casualties, environmental
and infrastructure destruction than Zimbabwe. The
possible factors which can be attributed to this rather
unfortunate scenario is the level of disaster
preparedness of Zimbabwe, the fragile environmentthat was offered by the predominant mountainous
landscape and the relatively slow speed of thecyclone which enabled it to damp a lot of rainfall perunit time. This could have been compounded by thetime when the disaster came, which was in the darkof the night hence reducing visibility to assess
evacuation options for the victims and, severely
limited the search and rescue processes.
The general Preparedness and the issuing of theTropical Cyclone Warning
The number of people affected by a hazard are in
direct proportion to the preparedness of thecommunity to the impending disaster. If I may quotefrom one of the victims, “No one knows where thiswater came from, it took us by surprise”, clearlytestifies to the fact that most of the communities
affected had not been fore warned about theimpending floods. While the Meteorological Services
can be applauded for having given the warning aleast 2 days before the cyclone, can we learnsomething from how the forecast was issued. My
few lessons on disaster warnings which I had somedecades back tells me that when one is more
confident of an impending disaster, the frequency of
the warnings should not only be increased with time
but also updated to suit the changing circumstances
as the hazard characteristics unfold. We are told thatthat the Met Office stuck to their 8:00 pm News slot
to disseminate the warning instead of soliciting for
more slots both on the TV and radio to conscientize
the people of the impending disaster. At the sametime, the TV and radio could also have allowed
unscheduled warnings to be flighted. Unless the Met
Forecasters themselves were not sure of themagnitude of the expected cyclone impact, I am
confident that the more they had exposed the people
to the warnings by increasing the issuing frequency
and updates, the more they were going to be taken
more seriously by the related stakeholders
responsible for evacuating the communities who
were at risk.

Large boulders and mud that was carried downslope and destroying houses in theirpath during Cyclone Idai.
On the other hand, even if a warning is issued
timeously and, with the required frequency andmode of dissemination which reaches down tothe communities, these people also need toknow what to do when a warning has been
issued. Their prior coordinated response is key
to ensure predictable community behavior
when the hazard strikes. It is a welcome
development that Chimanimani Rural District
Council is one of the few districts in the
country to have adopted the District Climate
Change and Watershed Management Policy.
But were the local communities trained onwhat to do when flood warnings are issued? At
the same time, evacuation needs resources
both to carry out the process and providing
safe havens, endowed with food and othernecessities. Were these readily available toexecute the process? We understand that thecontents of the tropical cyclone warning itself
advised people to move to high ground. Was
this the correct advice to give to Chimanimaniin the face of rock and mudslides which madethese high places riskier, especially that thedisaster struck at night when most people
were indoors and preparing to sleep? These
are some of the preparedness questions weneed to ask ourselves as we take introspect of
the lessons derived from the Tropical Cyclone
Idai preparedness and warning.

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Fragility and Vulnerability of Settlements intheMountainous
Environmentof
Chimanimani.
Tropical Cyclone Idai brought to the fore the highdegree of exposure of settlements and how
fragile the mountainous environments are. The
cyclone came after the region has been exposed
to a prolonged drought which removed thecapacity of the vegetation left to hold the soil
intact. The accelerated land degradation andfrequent fires which characterize periods ofdrought removed vegetation and hence limited
root depths, thereby increasing the landslide
hazard. It was then easy for the loose
waterlogged soil to flow downslope and with it,
imbedded rocks which then chocked the normal
flow of the water thereby exacerbating theflooding spatial extent and intensity. As such, theblocked rivers reopened old paths which had forthe past decades been converted to settlements.
A case in point is the Kopa Business Center
which was raised to the ground and leaving
behind little or no shred of evidence thatbuildings, with thriving businesses, were once
predominant in the area as the river repossessed
its former route. This means that old river paths
remain unsafe for settlements as at some point intime the river may still rejuvenate its former
paths.

Therefore, careful planning for resettlement sites
needs to take into consideration the possibility ofchanging river course characteristics.
On the
other
hand,
the
prevailingsuperstitions
surrounding the presence of the large rockboulders which were left in the river channels by
the flowing mud from the mountain slopes owes ascientific explanation. It was the large and unevenmulti-tone rocks which were hitting against theslope surfaces as they were rolling downslope
which were wrongly interpreted as an earthquakethat accompanied the tropical cyclone. This wascorroborated by the Meteorological Services which
confirmed not recording any seismic activity in thearea during the cyclone. Explaining thisphenomenon to the affected communities assists
in focusing on the real causes whilst getting rid ofsuperstitious beliefs which usually lead to wrong
attribution to the causes of the disaster. Dwellingon superstitious beliefs has the danger of divertingthe community’s attention to immaterial answers
rather than providing implementable scientificallybacked solutions.

unprecedented donations towards the victims’
recovery. It has also spontaneously given birth toa strong desire from national disaster research
institutions, to learn from this disaster in the bid tounderstand why this phenomenon happened withsuch dire consequences.
In research terms, Chimanimani provides a
conducive operational background and a well defined
geographical area, which could provide for feasible
action orientated research that could inform policy
and action in other areas within Zimbabwe andbeyond. The fact that the region has all the five
Agroecological Regions of the country makes theresults derived from the research to be relevantly
replicated in any other part of the country. In thisregard, Bindura University of Science Education
under AADRI with its vast experience in disaster risk
reduction research is coordinating a consortium ofother state universities to properly document, in ascientifically informed way, the lessons learnt fromtropical Cyclone Idai. This national action orientatedresearch, which is yet to source for funding, is poised
to pave way for a future situation that would allow thecommunities within Zimbabwe to be better preparedand become more resilient in the face of potentiallyrecurring Climate Change related events such as
Cyclone Idai. The strategy is to ride upon the shockthat is currently vividly present within Zimbabwe andbeyond to bring sustainable policy initiatives andpractices in view of various interests that could
provide for learning and dedicated action in
Chimanimani and other nationally comparable
situations. The objective of the research is to ‘Build
National Resilience to Tropical Cyclones throughderiving lesson from Tropical Cyclone Idai’.
Preliminary work to enable scouting for solid funding
for this noble action research was conducted at aworkshop in Harare that was facilitated by TSURO
Trust, a community-based NGO in Chimanimani that
was actively involved in Cyclone Idai relief andrecovery.

The way Forward under AADRI
With the advent of climate change, tropical
cyclones are not going ‘anywhere’, rather they arepoisedtobecomemore frequentandaccompanied by increased intensity. In thisregard, it is invertible that we find ways to live withthem whilst preventing the metamorphosis
process from being just a mere meteorologicalhazard to becoming an unmanageable national
disaster. This is ‘doable’ as Islands like Mauritiusthat lie in the path of more intense tropical
cyclones and are hit directly more than once inevery cyclone season, are now nearing the zerotarget casualty. At the same time, it is more thanwelcome that the general shock from thedevastating impacts of Tropical Cyclone Idai have
once
again
unitedthenationthroughProf. Desmond Manatsa, Executive Dean of the Faculty of
Science and Engineering; Bindura University of Science,
Zimbabwe; and Advisory Board Member for Global Alliance forDisaster Research Institutes (GADRI)

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GADRI Session at the World Bosai Forum 2019
The Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes(GADRI) and the Disaster Prevention ResearchInstitute (DPRI), Kyoto University actively participatedat the World Bosai Forum 2019 held at Tohoku
University, Sendai, Japan from 9 to 12 November
2019.

This was followed by Prof. Hirokazu Tatano,
Secretary-General, GADRI; and Vice-Director andProfessor, DPRI, Kyoto University who delivered an
outline of GADRI and purpose of the GADRI Session
at the World Bosai Forum 2019.
Prof. Yin-Nan Huang, Associate Professor, Dept. of
Civil Engineering, National Taiwan University; andDivision Head, Earthquake Disaster Simulation
Division, National Center for Research on Earthquake
Engineering (NCREE), Chinese Taipei presented an
overview of his institute activities and the aligningresearch projects towards the S&T Roadmap.

GADRI Session on Contribution to the Science andTechnology Roadmap for the Implementation of the
Sendai Framework for Action for Disaster Risk
Reduction 2015-2030 at the World Bosai Forum washeld on 11 November 2019.
The session particularly drew attention to current
status of research conducted by members of GADRI
in line with the targets of the Science and Technology
road to implement the Sendai Framework for Agenda
for 2030.

Prof. Ana Maria Cruz, delivered a presentation on
NATECH research and its contributions to the S&T
Roadmap. Dr. Tetsuya Takemi and Dr. Subhajyoti
Samaddar summary and way forward for GADRI
Global Summit series.

Prof. Manabe Hashimoto, Director, Disaster
Prevention Research Institute (DPRI), Kyoto
University greeted the participants and shared
information on DPRI, Kyoto University activities.

In addition, three students from DPRI-KU contributed
to the Flash Talk sessions.
Prof. Manabu Hashimoto, Director, DPRI, Kyoto University

Alessandra Colocci presenting apaper on A social-ecologicalapproachtodisasterriskmanagement applied to the casestudy of the Marche Region, Italy

Haris Rahadianto presenting apaper on Damage Distributionof Typhoon No. 21 in 2018 on
Osaka
and
Wakayama
Prefecture
basedon
Questionnaire Surveys

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Hasi presenting a paper on Fragility
curves for economic losses in industrial
sectors after strong wind disaster: A case of2018 Typhoon JebiGADRI Members
The Global Alliance of Disaster ResearchInstitutes (GADRI) was established in March 2015
to support the implementation of the Sendai
Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030(SFDRR) and the work of the Scientific andTechnical Advisory Group of the United Nations
Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDER).
GADRI joined hands with science communities
around the world to further realize these goals andtargets of the Science and Technology Roadmap.
Since March 2015, GADRI’s membership has
expanded to exceed 200 member institutions.

As of December 2019

GADRI Secretariat is currently hosted by theDisaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI),
Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Membership is free; and completely voluntary andnon-binding.
To join GADRI, please contact GADRI Secretariat:
secretariat-gadri@dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp

Global Alliance of Disaster Research Institutes (GADRI)
Secretariat
Disaster Prevention Research Institute (DPRI)
Kyoto University, Uji Campus, Gokasho, Uji-shi
Kyoto 611-0011, JAPAN
Tel: +81-774-38-4621
Fax: +81-774-38-4254
E-mail: secretariat-gadri@dpri.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Web: www.gadri.net

All rights reserved. GADRI ACTIONS is the property of GADRI and protected by the international copyright laws. GADRIACTIONS contents may not be reprinted, copied, and distributed without the copyright holder's prior written permission.

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