Proceedings of the International Symposium on Engineering Lessons Learned fromthe 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, March 1-4, 2012, Tokyo, JapanRESTORATIONS AND SYSTEM INTERACTIONS OF
LIFELINES IN THE GREAT EAST JAPAN
EARTHQUAKE DISASTER, 2011
Nobuoto NOJIMA1
1

Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Gifu University
Gifu, Japan, nojima@gifu-u.ac.jp

ABSTRACT: In the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster, lifeline systems wereseverely damaged by ground shaking, liquefaction and tsunami. In this paper, restoration
processes of lifelines including electric power supply, water supply, city gas supply
systems and telecommunication systems are compiled on the basis of published data andpress releases by the service providers and/or supervisory authorities. The scale and theduration of lifeline disruptions are compared with the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
Disaster.
Key Words: Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster, lifeline systems, restoration
processes

INTRODUCTION
Lifeline systems were severely damaged by ground shaking, liquefaction and tsunami caused by the2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake, Japan (Mw=9.0). In this paper, restoration processesof lifelines including electric power supply, water supply, city gas supply systems andtelecommunication systems are compiled on the basis of published data and press releases by theservice providers and/or supervisory authorities. The scale and the duration of lifeline disruptions arecompared with the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster.

ELECTRIC POWER SUPPLY SYSTEMS
The initial outage of electric power supply was 8.91 million households. In the area provided by
Tokyo Electric Power Company, 4.05 million households suffered power outage. However, therestoration was rapid; almost all the customers in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Gunma, Yamanashi and Shizuoka
prefectures were restored by the next day of the earthquake. The completion of functional recovery
was on March 13th in Saitama prefecture, March 14th in Tochigi and Chiba prefectures, and March
19th in Ibaraki prefecture.
In the area of Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc., 4.86 million households in six prefectures(Aomori, Iwate, Akita, Miyagi, Yamagata and Fukushima) suffered power outage. Figures 1 and 2
show the restoration processes of electric power supply in each prefecture. The 90% and 95% levels of
restoration (percent number of households restored divided by the initial outage) took six days and ten

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days, respectively (four days and seven days including Tokyo Electric Power Company). Relatively
rapid restoration was accomplished at the early stage as a result of rerouting operations and prompt
recovery works of hierarchically higher facilities such as transmission lines and substations. The
aftershock on April 7th (M=7.2) affected 4 million households and that on April 11th (M=7.0) affected
about 200 thousand households in Fukushima prefecture again, but the restoration was very rapid.
The restoration in the tsunami-devastated area was extremely lengthy process. Figure 3 shows thenumber of household without electric power during about a month after March 21st. The causes are
categorized into six: (1) public infrastructures and dwelling houses washed away by tsunami, (2) areas
blocked by tsunami debris, (3) equipments inundated by tsunami and/or damaged by ground shaking,(4) no safety confirmation mainly due to absence of users, (5) ready to be restored but not yet, (6) noentry zones around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Note that these categories had been
recomposed during the period of time.
5,000,000
4,500,000

Fukushima
Yamagata
Miyagi
Akita
Iwate
Aomori

3,500,000
3,000,000
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000

Total
11‐Mar11‐Mar12‐Mar13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
2‐Apr
3‐Apr
4‐Apr
5‐Apr
6‐Apr
7‐Apr
8‐Apr
8‐Apr
9‐Apr
10‐Apr11‐Apr11‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr0

Fig. 1 Number of households without electric power supply (Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc.)
100%

80%

Aomori
Iwate
Akita
Miyagi
Yamagata
Fukushima

60%

40%

20%

0%

16:00

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‐20%

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11‐ 12‐ 13‐ 14‐ 15‐ 16‐ 17‐ 18‐ 19‐ 20‐ 21‐ 22‐ 23‐ 24‐ 25‐ 26‐ 27‐ 28‐ 29‐ 30‐ 31‐ 1‐ 2‐ 3‐ 4‐ 5‐ 6‐ 7‐ 8‐ 8‐ 9‐ 10‐ 11‐ 11‐ 11‐ 12‐ 13‐ 14‐ 15‐ 16‐ 17‐ 18‐ 19‐ 20‐ 21‐ 22‐ 23‐ 24‐ 25‐ 26‐ 27‐
Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr

Fig. 2 Restoration curves of electric power supply function in affected prefectures(Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc.)
250000

Number of households

200000(6)150000(5)(4)

100000

(3)
(2)

50000

(1)
0

21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
2‐Apr
3‐Apr
4‐Apr
5‐Apr
6‐Apr
7‐Apr
8‐Apr
9‐Apr
10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐AprRestoration ratio

Number of households

4,000,000

Fig. 3 Number of households without electric power categorized into six causes(Tohoku Electric Power Company Inc.)

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WATER SUPPLY SYSTEMS
Water supply was disrupted at about 2.2 million households after the earthquake. Figures 4 and 5 show
the restoration processes of water supply in each prefecture. Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures
have been most affected. The 90% and 95% restoration were achieved in 36 days and 41 days,
respectively. Two major aftershocks on April 7th and 11th also drew back the restoration progress
especially in Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
In Miyagi Prefecture, The Sennan-Senen regional water supply system takes water from
Shichkasyuku Dam and Shiroishi River, and transmits to 17 municipalities in the central-south Miyagi
prefecture. The Ohsaki regional water supply system takes water from Naruse River and Yoshida River,and transmits to 10 municipalities in central-nourth Miyagi prefecture. Large-diameter welded steeltransmission pipelines of these trans-municipal water supply systems suffered major damage (16 and51 breaks, respectively), which significantly hindered recovery work during a few weeks. The
configurations of these water transmission networks are basically tree-like structures. Because of poor
redundancy of tree networks, the downstream areas of the most upstream location of pipe failures lose
water supply. Recovery works of the failed pipes had to be conducted from the upper part in order torestore connection between water sources to users. Therefore, remote areas from the water source
experienced longer disruption of water. According to Miyagi Prefectural Government, two
independent lines, serving high- and low-elevation areas, are planned to be connected and looped toenhance redundancy and improve reliability in case of disaster.
In Iwate Prefecture, restoration ratio as of ten days after the earthquake reached 50%, but therestored customers were limited to those in inland regions or northern coastal regions where tsunami
disaster was relatively slight. Slow progresses of restoration thereafter reveal that recovery works inthe tsunami devastated coastal regions were significantly hindered.
2,000,000
1,800,000
Chiba
SaitamaGunma
Tochigi
Ibaraki
Fukushima
Yamagata
Akita
Miyagi
Iwate
Aomori

1,600,000
Number of households

1,400,000
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
200,000

Total
13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
2‐Apr
3‐Apr
4‐Apr
5‐Apr
6‐Apr
7‐Apr
8‐Apr
9‐Apr
10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr28‐Apr0

Fig. 4 Number of households without water supply
100%
90%
80%
Aomori
Iwate
Miyagi
Akita
Yamagata
Fukushima
IbarakiTochigi
Gunma
Saitama

60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
2‐Apr
3‐Apr
4‐Apr
5‐Apr
6‐Apr
7‐Apr
8‐Apr
9‐Apr
10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr28‐AprRestoration ratio

70%

Fig. 5 Restoration curves of water supply function in affected prefectures

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CITY GAS SUPPLY SYSTEMSThe service areas of city gas supply are limited to urbanized regions in Tohoku. In Tohoku and Kanto
regions, 16 city gas suppliers sustained suffered damage and the initial outage was 459 thousandhouseholds in total. Figures 6 and 7 show the restoration processes of city gas supply in eachprefecture. The 90% and 95% restoration were achieved in 35 days and 36 days, respectively. In
Saitama, Kanagawa, Aomori and Ibaraki prefectures, restoration processes were relatively rapid;
temporary restorations were achieved on March 12th, 13th, 16th and 24th, respectively. However, thisaccounts for only 10.3% on the number of customers basis. In Chiba prefecture, pipelines of Keiyo
Gas Corp. suffered severe damage in Urayasu City due to liquefaction, and temporary restoration wascompleted on March 30th. In Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures, completion days were April
11th, 15th and 25th, respectively.
The most affected supplier was the Gas Bureau of City of Sendai. The Minato LNG plant wasdevastated by tsunami, which was the main cause of the city gas outage at 359 thousand households(78.2% of the total outage). Fortunately, long-distance high-pressure pipeline network transmitting
natural gas from Niigata Prefecture to Sendai performed well. Transmission of natural gas was shut off
immediately after the earthquake at Shiroishi junction valve station. However, after completing safety
inspection along the transmission line to Sendai including 15 valve stations the network system
restarted its operation on March 23th, contributing to rapid recovery thereafter. Thanks to thisoperation, two disaster base hospitals in Sendai City were prioritized and immediately restored.
Without the natural gas supply via high-pressure pipeline, recovery of city gas supply in Sendai City
could have been much later.

500,000
450,000
Kanagawa
Chiba
Saitama
Ibaraki
Fukushima
MiyagiIwate

400,000

Number of households

350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,00011‐Mar12‐Mar13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
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3‐Apr
4‐Apr
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6‐Apr
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8‐Apr
9‐Apr
10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr28‐Apr29‐Apr30‐Apr
1‐May
2‐May
3‐May
4‐May

0

Fig. 6 Number of households without city gas supply
100%
90%
80%
Aomori
Iwate
Miyagi
Fukushima
Ibaraki
Saitama
Chiba

70%

Restoration ratio

60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%

11‐Mar12‐Mar13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
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10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr28‐Apr29‐Apr30‐Apr
1‐May
2‐May
3‐May
4‐May

0%

Fig. 7 Restoration curves of city gas supply function in affected prefectures

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TELEPHONE AND TELECOMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
Figure 8 shows the restoration processes of telephone and telecommunication lines. Affected telephone
and telecommunication lines peaked on March 13, i.e., two days after the earthquake, because of
exhausted back up generators and batteries. About 1.52 million lines were out of service. The 90% and
95% restoration took 14 days and 25 days, respectively. About 70,000 lines were affected again on
April 8th mainly due to power loss caused by the major aftershock on April 7th.
As for cellular phones, more than 13,000 base stations of three major service providers lost
functions. Figures 9 and 10 shows the restoration processes of base stations of three major cellular
phone companies. The 90% and 95% restoration were achieved in 19 days and 46 days, respectively.
The rapid recovery of base stations at the early stage is congruent with that of electric power supply,
which is a typical aspect of lifeline system interactions. Many base stations for cellular phones weredamaged mainly because electric power supply units were inundated and/or washed away by tsunami,
significantly hindering progress of recovery.
1600000
1400000

Optical IP telephony
ISDN
Landline phone

1000000
800000600000400000

14:00

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1:30

0

22:00

200000
17:00

Number of affected lines

1200000

11‐ 12‐ 12‐ 12‐ 12‐ 12‐ 12‐ 13‐ 13‐ 14‐ 14‐ 15‐ 16‐ 16‐ 17‐ 18‐ 19‐ 20‐ 21‐ 22‐ 23‐ 24‐ 25‐ 26‐ 27‐ 28‐ 29‐ 30‐ 31‐ 1‐ 2‐ 3‐ 4‐ 5‐ 6‐ 7‐ 8‐ 8‐ 8‐ 8‐ 9‐ 10‐ 11‐ 12‐ 13‐ 14‐ 15‐ 16‐ 17‐ 18‐ 19‐ 20‐ 21‐ 22‐ 23‐ 24‐ 25‐ 26‐ 27‐ 28‐ 29‐
Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr Apr

Fig. 8 Number of affected telephone lines (NTT East Corp.)
7000

Number of base stations

6000

NTTdocomoau(KDDI)
Softbank mobile

5000
4000
3000
2000
1000

12‐Mar13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
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10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr28‐Apr29‐Apr0

Fig. 9 Number of affected base stations for mobile phones of three providers
100%
90%
70%
60%
50%
40%
NTTdocomoau(KDDI)
Softbank mobile

30%
20%
10%
0%

11‐Mar12‐Mar13‐Mar14‐Mar15‐Mar16‐Mar17‐Mar18‐Mar19‐Mar20‐Mar21‐Mar22‐Mar23‐Mar24‐Mar25‐Mar26‐Mar27‐Mar28‐Mar29‐Mar30‐Mar31‐Mar
1‐Apr
2‐Apr
3‐Apr
4‐Apr
5‐Apr
6‐Apr
7‐Apr
8‐Apr
9‐Apr
10‐Apr11‐Apr12‐Apr13‐Apr14‐Apr15‐Apr16‐Apr17‐Apr18‐Apr19‐Apr
20‐Apr21‐Apr22‐Apr23‐Apr24‐Apr25‐Apr26‐Apr27‐Apr28‐Apr29‐AprRestoration ratio

80%

Fig. 10 Restoration curves of base stations for mobile phones of three providers

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COMPARISON WITH THE GREAT HANSHIN-AWAJI EARTHQUAKE DISASTER
Figures 11 and 12 compare the number of households without utility lifelines (E: electric power, W:
water and G: city gas) and associated restoration curves in the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake
Disaster (GEJED) and Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake Disaster (GHAED). As for electric power in
the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster, Tokyo Electric Power Company is excluded from the data.
Ratios of initial outage (GEJED/GHAED) are 1.9 (3.4 if Tokyo Electric Power Company is included),
1.7 and 0.54 for E, W and G, respectively. The fact that spatial extents of initial damages are in theorder of E, W and G is common to the two disasters. Also common is the fact that rapidness offunctional recoveries are in the order of E, W and G. Moreover restoration curves are incidentally
similar. However, it should be noted that the restoration of tsunami-devastated areas has been
extremely lengthy process and still in progress in association with regional disaster recovery plans.

Number of households

5,000,000
4,500,000

Water (Great East Japan EQD)

4,000,000

City gas (Great East Japan EQD)

3,500,000

Electric power (Great East Japan EQD)

3,000,000

Water (Great Hanshin‐Awaji EQD)

2,500,000

City gas (Great Hanshin‐Awaji EQD)
Electric power (Great Hanshin‐Awaji EQD)

2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000

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2
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73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82

0
Number of days after EQ (The day of the EQ =1)

Fig. 11 Comparison of number of households without lifeline functions(Great Eastern Japan EQD and Great Hanshin-Awaji EQD)
100%
90%
80%

Restoration ratio

70%

Water (Great East Japan EQD)
City gas (Great East Japan EQD)
Electric power (Great East Japan EQD)
Water (Great Hanshin‐Awaji EQD)
City gas (Great Hanshin‐Awaji EQD)
Electric power (Great Hanshin‐Awaji EQD)

60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
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19
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71
72
73
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75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82

0%
Number of days after EQ (The day of the EQ =1)

Fig. 12 Comparison of restoration curves (Great Eastern Japan EQD and Great Hanshin-Awaji EQD)

REFERENCES
Tohoku Electric Power Company (2011). http://www.tohoku-epco.co.jp/emergency/9/index.html
Tokyo Electric Power Company (2011). http://www.tepco.co.jp/index-j.html
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (2011). http://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/houdou/
Miyagi Prefectural Government (2011). http://www.pref.miyagi.jp/kigyo/
The Japan Gas Association (2011). http://www.gas.or.jp/default.html
NTT East Corp. (2011). http://www.ntt-east.co.jp/info/index.html
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (2011). http://www.soumu.go.jp/shinsai/

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