International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble – Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013

Wave of avalanche disasters in response to colonization:a century of statistics from the world’s deadliest avalanche-prone islands
1,2

3

1Evgeny A. Podolskiy *, Kaoru Izumi , Vladimir E. Suchkov , Nicolas Eckert
1
IRSTEA (UR ETGR), St.-Martin-d'Heres, France
2
Research Institute for Natural Hazards and Disaster Recovery, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan
3
Avalanche Safety Service, “Roza Hutor” Ski Resort, Sochi, Russia
ABSTRACT: The record of avalanche disasters on Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands was always incomplete due to the historical divide of the region between Japan and Russia. In this study we combineand analyze all available relevant information from Japanese and Russian archive sources in order toreconstruct a continuous centurial record of snow avalanche catastrophes in the region from 1910 to2010. Despite the relatively small scale of the majority of disastrous avalanches in the area, with atotal vertical drop less that 200 m, the evidence documented in this paper places Sakhalin and theKuril Islands among the most avalanche affected areas of the world. In total, 756 fatalities and morethan 238 injuries occurred in 275 accidents during 100 years (two thirds of the fatalities and accidents
were among Japanese). For example, this death toll is higher than that of Canada, New Zealand orIceland. The pattern of the fatality rate was found to decrease over time due to social factors and isdifferent from any other considered region due to the lack of any recreationist deaths. Even if the present fatality rate is lower than that of, for example, Iceland or the USA in recent years, the islands‟ percapita avalanche causality rate is among the highest in the world. Finally, a shock wave of avalanche
disasters in response to intense colonization of the islands could be shown. Although this demonstrated „wave‟ could be considered a local issue of the past, many presently developing countries may
face similar impacts.
KEYWORDS: avalanche, fatalities, disaster, statistics, Sakhalin, Kuril Islands.
descriptions, were found and collected from archives of old Japanese newspapers (Karafutonichinichi-shinbun, Otaru-shinbun and Hokkaido-Times), diaries and self-published memoirs (e.g. Nakamachi, 1991), and from multiple
previous Russian language scientific publications (e.g. Kazakova and Lobkina, 2007; Suchkov, 2012, and etc.). For additional analysis offactors contributing to the high number of accidents we also obtained meteorological records
made at old Japanese stations from Monthly
Reports of the Meteorological Observatory ofJapan (for the period of 1913–1940).

INTRODUCTION
In this study we attempt to reconstruct a full
centurial record of snow avalanche disasters on
Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, Russia, between
1910 and 2010. The recent history of this region
at the far east of Eurasia was shattered into two
distinct eras: (i) from 1905 to 1945 the Kuril Islands and half of Sakhalin were controlled byJapan, and (ii) after 1945 the whole territory became a part of USSR / Russia. This corresponded to a complete lack of any knowledge
possessed by Soviet / Russian scholars about
any avalanche catastrophes experienced by theprevious Japanese population (Suchkov, 2012).
In order to fill this gap, through a trilateral collaborative effort, we recovered and integrated allavailable records for reconstructing a full historyof the catastrophic encounters of the islands‟
inhabitants with snow avalanches.

RESULTSDATA AND METHODS
Analysed records about historical avalanche
accidents, including their physical and societal______________________
Corresponding author address: E. A. Podolskiy,
IRSTEA (UR ETGR), 2 rue de la Papeterie, BP76, 38402, St.-Martin-d'Heres cedex, France; tel:+33(0)4-7676-2758; fax: +33(0)4-7651-3803;
email: evgeniy.podolskiy@gmail.com

1135

Overall, for the period between 1910 and2010 we could identify 275 avalanche accidents,
at least 238 injuries, and 756 fatalities (Fig. 1;
more than half of the accidents and deaths wereamong Japanese and probably Koreans).
Meaning that for the first time the region could
be recognized as having one of the world‟shighest avalanche causality rates, and that,probably with the exception of Honshu Island(Japan), it presents the world‟s deadliest
avalanche-prone islands.
Four other important points found were: (i) apossible strong impact of large scale
deforestation (due to logging, fires and treediseases) in the vicinity of roads and settlements
on intensified avalanche activity (Fig. 2); (ii) thecolonization of the islands and increasingInternational Snow Science Workshop Grenoble – Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013
slope killed 23 Japanese soldiers (ShumshuIsland, 1/3/1945; Nakamachi, 1991). b) Exampleof poor forest conditions due to fires and pine
wilt near Poronaisk (photograph is a courtesy of
Kokusho Kanko-kai, Inc., Tokyo, Japan).

apopulation as the main drivers of high fatality
rates; (iii) a striking similarity between manylocations of „Japanese‟ and „Russian‟ disasters(Fig. 3); and, finally, (iv) almost a complete lackof recreational deaths, which now present themain risk group in developed countries.

bDISCUSSION
Comparison of the annual fatality and injury
rates (Fig. 1a&b) with overall population growthon the islands (not shown) suggested that anintensive colonization was the main cause ofhigh exposure of inhabitants to avalanches. A
higher rate of winter precipitation during the1930s could also play a role as a potential contributor to the high number of accidents (Fig.
1c).

cFigure 1. Annual number of a) fatalities, b) injuries, and c) accidents (1910-2010).

aabb

Figure 2. a) Example of a logging village at Sakhalin Island (1940s; photograph is a courtesy of
National Archives of Korea, Republic of Korea).
Note bald slopes near the settlement; with 300500 mm of winter precipitation even such slopes
may become potentially dangerous. For example, in one occasion an avalanche from a 10 m

Figure 3. Locations of fatal avalanche disasters:a) Japanese era (1910-1945) (violet circles indicate old Japanese meteorological stations); b)
Soviet / Russian era (1928-2010).

1136

International Snow Science Workshop Grenoble – Chamonix Mont-Blanc - 2013
The total number of fatalities in the region ishigher than all recorded fatalities in the history ofCanada, New Zealand or Iceland, and higher
than the non-recreational fatalities in France forthe same period of time. Thus this little known
region falls into the category of the territories
with the largest per capita losses due to snow
avalanches, like Switzerland, Austria, Iceland orNorway (Irwin and Owens, 2004).

sakimori dai 91 shidan dai 1 houheitai), privately
printed, Japan. (In Japanese)
Podolskiy, E. A., K., Izumi, V. E. Suchkov, and N.
Eckert, (submitted). Physical and societal
statistics for a century of snow avalanchehazards at Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands (1910 –2010). Submitted to Journal of Glaciology.
Suchkov, V. E. 2012. Role of snow drift inredistribution of snow cover and formation ofsnow patches, glaciers and avalanches on
Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Ph.D. Thesis,
RosHydroMet, Nalchik, Russia, 164 pp. (InRussian).

CONCLUDING REMARKS
It is our hope that awareness about previously unknown avalanche disasters of the Japanese era (Fig. 3a) and their further analysis will
be valuable for risk mitigation and will lead to asafer life on the islands.
Note that the full version of this study, which
includes a comprehensive review of the physicalproperties of the typical avalanches of the region, archival photography and in-depth statistical analysis and descriptions of catastrophic
events and their relationship to population andmeteorological factors, may be found in Podolskiy et al. (submitted). We present the work here
at the ISSW‟13 for facilitating discussions andwider dissemination of the results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank S. Matoba,E. A. Hardwick, Y. Ito, T. Nakamura and Y. Seofor help and discussions. The research leading
to these results was possible because of funding
from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under REA
grant agreement #298672 (FP7-PEOPLE-2011IIF, “TRIME”). K.I. acknowledges financial support partially from Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Japanese Society for the Promotion ofScience for a possibility to collect archival materials which made this study possible.
REFERENCES
Irwin, D. and I. Owens. 2004. A history of avalanche
accidents in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Proc.
Internat. Snow Sci. Workshop (ISSW-2004),
Jackson Hole, 484–491.
Kazakova, E. N., and V. A. Lobkina. 2007. Avalanche
disasters of Sakhalin oblast‟. Data of
Glaciological Studies, 103: 184−188. (InRussian).
Monthly Reports of the Meteorological Observatory ofJapan. The Central Meteorological Observatory,Tokyo, Japan. [for 1913−1940 may be accessedat http://kindai.ndl.go.jp/search]. (In Japanese).
Nakamachi, J. (Ed.). 1991. Northern defense party,
the 1st Artillery of the 91st Division (Kita no1137