Honorary Contribution

Bulletin of IISEE, 49, 65-88, 2015

DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES AND THE IMPORTANCE OF
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Julio KUROIWA1
ABSTRACTDuring the last decade very large and unexpected megadisasters have occurred: the 2004 Indian Ocean
Tsunami, and the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011. Also the 2010 Maule, Chile
earthquake, in addition to the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California, the USA and the 1995 Kobe,
Japan earthquake, have left a wealth of results that are permitting rapid advancement in science andtechnology. For example, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami impulsed the studies of paleotsunamis, andthe 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami occurred in one of the world best instrumented
regions. There, very large numbers of geophysical measurements, horizontal and vertical coseismic
displacements, were made. The deformation of the sea bottom provides information for understanding
how tsunamis are generated by megathrust earthquakes in subduction zones. The observed coseismic
displacements and their interpretation were considered as one of the most important advancements inscience in 2011 by an article on the journal SCIENCE.
A large number of investigations have been made, institutionally and individually. One of themost important and useful ones in disaster prone countries is the report of the Government of Japan,
GFDRR and World Bank entitled “Learning from Megadisasters”. This report covers in six clusters, allphases of Disaster Risk Manage (DRM), and for every case there are special recommendations fordeveloping countries.
Section 2 of this paper includes the direct experience for facing future disasters based on theirrelative development. Chile and Colombia have had direct experiences in disasters a few years before
the 2010 Maule, Chile earthquake and the 1999 Eje Cafetero, Colombia earthquake. Both countries
responded adequately to those events. The Venezuelan Caribbean has had debris flow disasters about
once a century. So on the debris deposit fans, modern beach resorts were developed. The scenario forthe disaster was ready, and it occurred in December 1999, when some 13,000 persons lost their lives andthe material losses amounted to over US$ 10,000 million.
A destructive earthquake struck Lima, Peru’s capital city in 1974. Most of its inhabitants have
not had any direct experience of an earthquake. In spite of the fact that two recent investigations on thepossible effects of an earthquake and tsunami in Lima concluded that the death toll would be high andthe material losses huge, the best word to describe the attitude of Lima inhabitants is “indifference”: thisis a challenging task that needs to be faced with decision and energy.
In Section 3 is included the advancement in studies on paleotsunamis and coseismic
deformations which are permitting among other actions, practical engineering applications. In Section
4 as a case study of the benefits of international cooperation, the example of Peru is presented. In Section
5, a summary of the most important lessons left by disasters occurred in Asia and the Americas during
the last few years is included.

Professor Emeritus, National University of Engineering, Lima, Peru; Ad-honorem advisor to Peru’s
Civil Defense.

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1. INTRODUCTION

The risk for life and properties of people living in the Third World countries, located in disaster-prone
regions is “very high” or “high”, depending on their relative development, mainly the level of educationin general, and particularly education in disaster risk reduction, as well as recent direct experience infacing large disasters. International cooperation has played a very important role in reducing the risk ofdisaster in those countries, as highlighted in this paper.
The countries affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which left some 230,000 mortal
victims, who didn´t have any tsunami experience during the 20th century (e.g., USGS Web-Site-1); andby the 2010 Haiti earthquake with a death toll of some 70, 000 to over 200, 000, depending on the data
source, as USGS Web-Site-2 or Munich Re (2004), might be examples of the first group of nations. In
the second group the South American Andean countries may be included: Chile, Colombia, Venezuela
and Peru, with some differences among them. Lessons from disasters that have struck those countries in
the last few decades, and how those events had been handled before new disasters affected those nations,
are included in Section 2 of this paper.
The largest disasters that have occurred during the last 20 years have left important lessons:the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004; the earthquakes at Maule, Chile, February 27, 2010;
and the Great East Japan (alias Tohoku-Oki, Japan) Earthquake and Tsunami, occurred on March 11,
2011. On the last two megadisasters, hundreds of papers have been produced investigating both events,
institutionally and individually, and these have been mainly summarized by researchers of the Universityof Chile (University of Chile, 2012) and by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI, 2012);
and for the Great East Japan event, e.g., in a comprehensive report by the Government of Japan, Global
Facility of Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR) and the World Bank (i.e., Ranghieri and Ishiwatari, 2014);
as well as the EERI (2013). They are very important documents that need to be made known
worldwidely and include special recommendations on Disaster Risk Management (DRM) for
developing countries. They consider the whole process of DRM, including business continuity after adisaster that is a new matter for most developing countries, and should be included in their DRM toprevent problems of bankruptcy of large, medium and small businesses.
After the 2004 Indian tsunami disaster, the investigations on paleotsunamis received an
important impulse, and in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, which occurred in one of
the world’s best instrumented regions, coseismic horizontal and vertical displacements were recorded,
as never before, precise enough to improve the understanding of how earthquakes and tsunamis are
generated in subduction zones. For example, in SCIENCE, June 17, 2011 issue, it was reported thatcoseismic recordings and their interpretation were regarded as one of the outstanding scientificadvancements in 2011 (i.e., Simons et al., 2013). Hashimoto (2013) in a special issue of “Earthquake
Spectra” (EERI , 2013) reported on the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake and tsunami, taking as reference
Simons et al. (2011) to illustrate the meaning of horizontal and vertical coseismic displacement. In thewhole area were operating continuously more than 1,200 recording sites of the Global Positioning
System (GPS) called GEONET, installed and operated by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan(GSI) (e.g., GSI Web Site). The horizontal coseismic displacement during the main shock extracted fromthe continuous records of GPS that is west to east of Honshu exceeded 4.3 m horizontally in at the
Pacific coast and about 1.0 m in the border of the Japan sea, including some 0.4m on the Sado island in
the Japan sea. The peak horizontal GPS measured displacements was approximately 0.44 m. in this case.
Using the GPS observation data, as well as those of sea floor pressure gauge, seafloor deformation model
was made. This model predicts the maximum seafloor subsidence of about 2.0 m located 50 km offshore
Sendai and Kamaishi and the maximum uplift just under 9.0 m some 50 km from the trench. On land,
the measured observed subsidence was 0.50 m.
These latest advancements in science and technology are permitting important practicalengineering applications also, such as estimating the return period of 1,000 years for tsunamis; it was
impossible to do so only a few years ago, due to the lack of necessary historical data, for example, along
the South America’s west coast, where existing data go back only some 500 years as included in Section
3 of this paper.
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international cooperation is for reducing disaster in a developing country.
Peru has received benefits from international cooperation mainly by training in the hostcountries, for example, in known universities in the USA, Japan and other countries. The International
Institute of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, Building Research Institute (IISEE, BRI) locatedin Tsukuba, Japan under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT), theGovernment of Japan is a special case to mention as an institution specializing in disaster reduction
applied to Seismology, Earthquake Engineering, and Tsunami Disaster Management.
In over 50 years of activities the IISEE, as of September 2014 has trained 1,653 participantsfrom 99 developing countries as included in the recent volume of its Year Book (IISEE, 2014). From
1963 to 1972 UNESCO supported IISEE, to maintain its training courses (IISEE Web Site).
Indonesia and Peru are the countries with the greatest number of participants at the IISEE. In
the case of Peru, its participation was increased due to the 1970 Ancash, Peru earthquake with the largest
death toll in the Americas in the 20th century: 67,000 fatal victims (e.g., CRYRZA, 1972).
Peru’s case study is included to show the great benefits that this developing country hasreceived from international cooperation agencies and from governments that have developed hightechnology in disaster risk reduction, such as Japan and the USA.
In Section 5 of this paper, “Concluding Remarks and Recommendations”, an effort was madeto summarize results of important advancements in science and technology for reducing disasters,developed during the last few years, and how developing countries may improve the results of technicalassistance for the direct benefit of those countries focused on the poor and vulnerable people.

2. DISASTER RISK REDUCTION IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN ANDEAN COUNTRIES
2.1. An Overview
The general knowledge on disaster risk management and the direct experience of a generation that has
suffered the consequences of a great disaster have an important influence on the attitude how to prepare
and to respond to future disasters.
Chile responded adequately after the 2010 Maule, Chile earthquake and tsunami, andColombia rehabilitated and reconstructed the city of Armenia, Dept. of Quindio affected by the 1999
Eje Cafetero earthquake with efficiency and according to the established timetable.
Since the 1939 Chillán, Chile earthquake, with a death toll of 30,000 (USGS Web Site-3) Chile
has been struck by destructive earthquakes practically during every generation. Colombia had an
unfortunate mismanagement of the Nevado del Ruiz volcanic eruption disaster when 23,000 persons
lost their lives in the city of Armero with its total 30,000 inhabitants. Volcanologist Dr. John Tromblin
from UNDRO, Geneva, provided the author the volcano hazard map of Armero in November, 1985. But
Colombian learnt the lessons. Only 14 years later they did a good job in the rehabilitation andreconstruction of the city of Armenia affected by the 1999 Eje Cafetero, Colombia earthquake. There
was a good planning, coordination and provision of the necessary funds. The central, regional and local
governments did a good job.
The Venezuelan Caribbean north of Caracas has suffered very destructive flooding about once
every hundred years, so when the 1999 Venezuela debris flow and flash flood disaster struck the area,
modern urban beach resorts had been developed occupying the hazardous alluvial fans, practically the
only available flat area in the narrow strip between the Cordillera de la Costa, which runs parallel to the
Venezuelan Caribbean coast and the valley of Caracas where, the Venezuela capital city is located. So
the disaster scenario was ready for the 1999 event (Larsen et al., 2001).
Lima, the capital city of Peru, houses 9.5 million inhabitants. In 1974 the last destructive
earthquake struck the central western coast of Peru, where Lima and its nearby seaport, Callao, arelocated (USGS Web Site-4), so most of the people living in the area who are under 40-43 years old do
not have any direct experience of earthquake disaster.
In spite of the fact that the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP) is warning that there is a seismic
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Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department (ECHO) and the Government of Japan, have foundthat if an earthquake of large magnitude occurs in the Lima area, the mortal victims might be numerous
and the material losses might also be huge, the reaction of civil society is very poor. However to revert
this situation which is difficult and an important challenge, the official institutions and the civil society
need to be face this situation necessarily, with determination and energy.
2.2. Chile
The 1939 Chillán, Chile earthquake killed some 30,000 people and motivated the development ofEarthquake Engineering in that country. During the 1940s and 1950s, Santiago de Chile and Los Angeles,
California, the USA had restrictions regarding the height of buildings, limiting them to 10 stories high.
The Maule Chile earthquake (February 27, 2010, Mw 8.8) had a death toll of 709 persons andthe material losses were over US$ 30,000 million according to the Report of Situation Nº 10 from theUnited Nations Resident Coordination Office to the Government of Chile of March 30, 2010. Since theearly 20th century practically each generation experienced a destructive earthquake, so Chileans areconstantly aware of the seismic and tsunami risk, and most people know how to face emergencies. For
example, during the early morning on February 27, 2010 the tsunami warning was officially canceled
due to a technical error. However, people felt a large earthquake that lasted for more than three minutes,
so according to their own knowledge, they knew that they needed to evacuate the tsunami inundation
zones to high locations. This reaction is the result of education such as the Earthquake and Tsunami
education in Chile, which is one of the most advanced in Latin America, together with the “Kamaishi
Miracle” (e.g., Sawaji, 2012). These two cases show how critical is education on disaster risk reduction
for protecting people.
Chile was struck in 1960 by the largest earthquake since seismic magnitude has been estimatedusing instrumented recordings. It was the 1960 Valdivia, Chile earthquake of Mw 9.5. It generated alarge tsunami that crossed the Pacific Ocean to cause more than 61 mortal victims in Hawaii, and 340
in Sanriku, Japan, known to be one of the most sensitive locations to tsunami effects in the world. Also,
32 persons lost their lives in the Philippines (USGS Web Site-5). The Hawaiian Islands are the productof a hot spot emerged from the ocean bottom by successive emissions of lava. So there is deep ocean
water near their coast, causing tsunami run ups to be unusually high, since there is practically no energy
dissipation on the sea bottom near the islands.
The first tsunami wave reached east of Honshu at Sanriku coast, in some 20 hours. Here, there
is also deep ocean water near the coast, with U, V, and W-shape bays, that concentrate the tsunami
energy in the bays tips. During the March 11, 2011 event, in one of those bays, the run up reached over
40 m. The pictures of devastated areas provided by NOAA are of a clear message to the people withknowledge on tsunamis (NOAA Web Site for “2011/03/11 Tohoku Japan earthquake and tsunami”).
During the next few hours and days, TV and newspaper reports confirmed the very large magnitude ofthe disaster. In fact, of the near 20,000 mortal victims, most of them lost their lives due to the tsunami
and the material losses were caused mostly by the tsunami generated by the 2011 Great East Japan
earthquake.
Because of the strategic location of the Hawaiian Island, almost at the center of the Pacific
Ocean, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (e.g., PTWC Web Site) is located in Ewa Beach at Hawaii
Head and is operated by NOAA. It was initially installed in 1949 when the Aleutian Alaska Islands
earthquake generated a tsunami that killed 165 persons in Hawaii in 1946 (e.g., USC Tsunami ResearchGroup Web Site). As the sea recessed, people invaded the dry sea bed, and when the second wave arrived
those people lost their lives. Also during the tsunami attacked Camaná, Peru caused by the 2001
Arequipa, Peru earthquake (e.g., International Tsunami Survey Team, 2001), some 70 people walked
down on the dry sea bottom and were killed by the second wave; unfortunately they did not know what
had happened in Hawaii in 1946. After the tsunami caused by the 1960 Valdivia, Chile earthquake, the
PTWC incorporated as members all countries located in the Pacific Ocean. Following the Indian Ocean
Tsunami of 2004, at present there is a Tsunami Warning System for the Indian Ocean where UNESCO
and the USAID played key roles (International Oceanographic Commission Web Site).
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characteristics, the soil´s influence and its geographic distribution on the seismic intensity and thus on
the damage degree. The Maule, Chile earthquake (February 27, 2010, Mw 8.8), had a death toll of 709
persons but the material losses were some US$ 30, 000 million, most of the losses being from damage
to non-structural elements and buildings contents. The damage to hospital facilities was nearly
US$ 3,000 million, and 79 hospitals were put out of service. Chile needed some 10 field hospitals
provided by friendly countries (United Nations, 2010). The large magnitude and duration of the event
gradually increased the pore water pressure and when it surpassed the confining vertical load, soilliquefaction occurred extensively, even a few hundred kilometers from the seismic epicenter.
Liquefaction also occurred during the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. Extensive soilliquefaction occurred along the shore of Tokyo Bay and along the banks of Tone river located at northof Tokyo that discharge the water into the Pacific Ocean (EERI, 2013). During both earthquakes, i.e, the2010 in Chile and the 2011 in Japan, one of the most damaging effects was soil liquefaction and lateral
spreading.
During the Great East Japan Earthquake a number of high-rise buildings protected with seismic
isolations and energy dissipation devices behaved adequately in response to high seismic intensity. In
Sendai city where the seismic intensity reached X in the Mercalli Modified Intensity Scale (MMI),
buildings protected by energy reducing device, did not suffered any damage as for example the Sendai
First Tower, 24 story high building + 2 penthouses and 2 basements, and the Sendai MT a 30 story highbuilding. More advanced equipment were also installed in a few buildings which generate forces
contrary to that produced by the seismic reaction of inertial forces. In Chile some buildings were
protected by seismic isolation and energy dissipation devices and responded as expected.
2.3. Colombia
The Colombian Nevado del Ruiz volcanic eruption on November 13, 1985, killed 23,000 of its 30,000
total inhabitants of Armero city (e.g., Wright and Pierson, 1992). The United Nations Disaster Relief
Office in Geneva (UNDRO) under the leadership of volcanologist Dr. John Tomblin, who was providing
technical assistance to Colombia’s INGEOMINAS, warned the department of Tolima and the city ofArmero authorities at the end of October 1985 that the eruption was imminent as the lava flow wasapproaching the volcano crater. Working closely together with INGEOMINAS, the official institutionof the Government of Colombia dealing with geology and mines, they provided the lahar hazard map ofArmero (Fig. 1; Kuroiwa, 2004). The Lagunillas river crosses Armero at its center from west to east,that heads on to Nevado del Ruiz strato-volcano 5,400 m above sea level (a.s.l.), covered with 30 m ofice cap, which is located west of Armero. During the eruption of volcano on November 13, 1985, it
melted the ice cap and an enormous volume of mud, lava and ice flowed down toward Armero along
the Lagunilla River. A previous landslide had dammed a large volume of water, so the volume of lahar
was substantially increased. When people of Armero heared tremendous noise of the lahar, they tried toevacuate the city in panic, so the evacuation resulted in chaos. Many of them lost their lives hit by cars.
But it was too late. The governor of the department of Tolima was put into jail, but not the local
authorities of Armero. They were buried under 3-4 m of mud, ice and large rocks. (Personalcommunications with survivor of the Armero disaster, January 1986, and with Dr. John Tomblin, 1985).
In January 1986, the author inspected the remains of Armero which had been razed (Fig.2b). Less than
20% of the city, the north and south ends, was practically intact. Comparing the lahar hazard map ofArmero provided by INGEOMINAS/UNDRO with the actual effects, it was remarkably precise (Fig.
1). The refuge area east of Armero consisted of gently sloping hills, easy to climb by children and aged
persons (Fig. 2b). A comment on the Armero tragic disaster is included in Box 4.1, p 204 of the book
“Disaster Reduction”, presented during the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe,
Hyogo, Japan in January 2005 (i.e., Kuroiwa, 2004). The tragic lesson was learned very well in
Colombia and was applied in the quick and efficient rehabilitation and reconstruction of the city of
Armenia affected by the 1999 January 25 Armenia, Colombia earthquake. The death toll was about
1,000, and 4,000 were injured and over 200,000 were left homeless. The damage distribution map was
unusual. There were some strips where practically no damage occurred at all, but in some other strips
the damage to brick construction was 100%, as in the Brasilia quarter of Armenia City. When the area

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Fig. 1. Lahar hazard map of Armero (UNDRO/INGEOMINAS) provided to the author by Dr.
John Tomblin from UNDRO, at Geneve in November, 1985. Note the safe sector east ofArmero. After Kuroiwa (2004)

Fig. 2a. People being rescued from mud flow inArmero. In the background, there is the safe sectorof Fig.1 east of the city easy to climb by children
and aged people. Photo provided by UNDRO tothe author. After Kuroiwa (2004)

Fig. 2b. Downtown Armero where thousands ofpeople resided before the volcanic disaster. Phototaken by the author in January 1986.

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was being prepared for urban use, a large volume of soil was cut and the depressions were filled withnot much care. Previous settlements and the large intensity generated in the filled soil were responsible
for the total destruction of constructions there. During the 2001 Arequipa, Peru earthquake, in thenorthern sector of the city of Tacna the plotted damage also clearly showed the areas that were filled andthe seismic damage was almost total there according to a report from the Regional Office in Tacna of
the Ministry of Construction, Housing and Sanitation (MVCS).
2.4. Venezuela
The 1999 Venezuela debris flow and flash flood disaster of 1999 have a return period of about a century,
so hazardous alluvial fans were occupied during the second half of the 20th century, by highly developed
urban conglomerates in the Venezuelan Caribbean, north of Caracas, the country’s capital city. There,
from December 14 to 16, 1999, a major storm deposited 911 mm of rain centered on the Venezuelan
state of Vargas. Two weeks previously, that area had been affected by a 200 mm rainfall, so the area waswet, and when the disaster occurred the water emission was quick. The death toll was some 15,000
persons, and the total material losses are uncertain, but the best estimation may be nearly US$ 10,000
million; however, there are discrepancies depending on the institution preparing the reports, (e.g., Larsen
et al., 2001; Munich Re, 2004).
The constructions included dozens of R. C. multistory apartment buildings; however most of
the residences -summer and weekend resorts- were one- and two-story masonry dwellings. This highly
vulnerable built-up area, was a scenario ready for disasters (Larsen et al., 2001). The Venezuela Civil
Protection invited the author for lecturing in two international seminars in Caracas. During the first visit,
inspection was made from helicopter, and during the second visit inspection was made by visiting thereconstruction works underway. The results were presented in a Sabo International Seminar in Toyama
city, Japan (Kuroiwa, 2010). The author expresses his gratitude to the Government of Venezuela, thePrefecture of Toyama and JICA.
2.5. Peru
The Lima Metropolitan area at present houses some 9.5 million people; the awareness of most of thesepeople that they face disaster is very low. The last destructive earthquake struck the area in 1974. The
M 7.8 earthquake had a death toll of 252 persons. That was more than 40 years ago, so the great majorityof people living in Lima have no any direct experience of a destructive earthquake. They are notinterested in protecting themselves and their properties from a destructive earthquake and tsunami. Mostof them think "Nothing will happen. It is not my problem.” However, two cooperative investigations
had been conducted. The first one "Preparation in case of Earthquake and for Tsunami Disaster and
Early Recovery of Lima and Callao" funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil
Protection Department (ECHO), were conducted by UNDP/Peru. This project concluded that there wasa "high probability of occurrence of a large magnitude earthquake and tsunami affecting the Lima
/Callao area.” The focus of this project is to reduce the suffering of Limeños (the inhabitants of Lima)
if the assumed disaster occurs, providing humanitarian assistance, recovering the functioning of thelifeline services such as water, energy, transportation and communication, as soon as possible.
The second was the Project on “Enhancement of Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Mitigation
Technology in Peru a Japan-Peru cooperative investigation partnership for sustainable development”
under SATREPS scheme (Yamasaki and Zavala, 2013) that has conducted comprehensive researchstudies on earthquake and tsunami disaster mitigation in Peru developed during 2008-2013. The
important and useful data to reduce disasters in Metropolitan Lima are included in 12 papers in thespecial issue of the Journal of Disaster Research Vol. 8 N° 2, March 2013. The main conclusion of the
SETREPS report is that if a large magnitude earthquake accompanied by a tsunami occurs in the
subduction zone near to Lima, in the Metropolitan area the death toll may be some tens of thousands ofvictims and the material losses could be huge.
According to the Inter-American Development Bank (2013), Peru has US$ 450,000 million atrisk in a disaster of natural origin. The author is assuming a loss of 8% at risk, then the losses would be- 71 -

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some US$ 36,000 million. This is a task that all Peruvians need to face, if the country is attempting to
be a first world country in the next few decades. The announcement was made when the Inter-American
Bank provided Peru with a loan of US$ 300 million early in 2014 for disaster contingencies. The
Government of Japan has also provided Peru with a contingency loan for a similar amount.
The results of these two investigations are complementary: the Japan-Peru project estimatedthe impact of large earthquake and tsunami and the ECHO/UNDP focused on what to do to reduce thesuffering of the inhabitants of Lima and what to do for a rapid recovery. It is necessary that the resultsof those two investigations motivate people of all ages and social classes, which is not easy because of
the lack of knowledge on earthquakes and tsunamis. The author has been requesting for decades thatdisaster risk management be a State Policy in Peru. The 2010 Maule, Chile earthquake with losses of
US$ 30,000 million prompted the Peruvian Government and civil society to approve unanimously in
the Palace of Government on December 17, 2010, that Peru’s 32nd State Policy is Disaster Risk
Management. Two of the important considerations are that education for reducing disaster is compulsory
for all levels of education and that cities be expanded and densified according to the environment, i.e.,
using multihazard maps. Following El Niño 1997-98 at the end of 1998, the author proposed to the
Peruvian Prime Minister, who was at the same time Head of the El Niño Reconstruction Committee(CEREN) that the reconstruction of the northwestern cities seriously affected by El Niño 1997-98 bebased on multihazard maps. The best argument to convince authorities from central and local was thatthe flooding maps of the main cities in Peru’s north-western region affected by El Niño 1997-98 werepractically carbon copies of those flooding maps affected by El Niño 1982-83. Both El Niño Phenomena
were high-grade extraordinary events.
From 1998 to 2012 under the frame of Peru’s Sustainable Cities Programme, the multihazard
maps of 175 Peruvian cities with 7.5 million inhabitants were developed, including the land-use
planning to reduce disasters and including 4 to 8 disaster mitigation profiles for each city.
Peru’s Civil Defense (INDECI) and the Peruvian Engineers Association (Colegio deIngenieros del Perú (CIP)) with a membership of more than 150,000 engineers of all specialties will
provide technical advice to local authorities of cities spread all over the country so that in the year 2021,
bicentennial of the country’s independence, Peruvian cities will be physically safer than at present(Kuroiwa, 2014).

3. LATEST ADVANCEMENTS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCEDISASTERS - SOME APPLICATIONS IN ENGINEERING PRACTICE
Only a few years ago it was not possible to estimate the tsunami run-up for a return period of 1,000
years in the subduction zone off the west coast of South America where the Nazca and South America
plates interact, necessary data for the design of buildings and infrastructure in tsunami inundation zones,
because of the lack of historical data. A tsunami is considered to be an infrequent event. For example,
in the Indian Ocean the only tsunami that occurred during the 20th century and early 21st century was
the Great Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004. On the central west coast of Peru where Lima,
the country´s capital city and its nearby seaport of Callao are located, historical data on earthquakes andtsunamis that have struck the area exist only since the 16th century when the Spaniards arrived in SouthAmerica.
The information collected by chroniclers and religious is kept in “Archivo General de Indias”
in Seville, Spain (Centro Virtual Cervantes Web Site). It was created by the king Charles III in 1785,
with the objective to centralize in only one place all the documents of the Spain colonies. The Archivehas 43,000 files with 80 million page, 8,000 maps and drawings, prepared by the metropolitan
administration for example by the Viceroyalty of Peru. It is the main source of data for South American
seismologists and historians. After the independence of the South American countries, local historians
continued to collect data, starting about 200 years ago. Since the early decades of the 20th century, whenearthquakes started to be recorded instrumentally, the number of seismic events has increased
exponentially. The data available are applied to find the seismicity of a region using the theory ofprobabilities to determine, for example, the peak acceleration for earthquakes with a period of 500 years,- 72 -

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which most of the seismic codes consider for designing buildings, as does the present Peruvian Seismic
Code NTE. 0.30 of 2006 which applied the seismic catalog of IGP. The existing data are also useful forfinding the seismic peak acceleration for a return period of 1,000 and 2,000 years, as required, forexample, by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), andused by most countries in the Americas to support quality and safety in designing and executing theconstruction of transportation projects. Such infrastructure is critical in the event of disaster: if highways,
bridges and tunnels show consequences of failures, this could be fatal in post-disaster activities, such as
supplying humanitarian aid and undertaking rehabilitation and reconstruction.
But this is not the case for tsunamis on the west coast of South America where the existingdata from the last 500 years include very little information on tsunamis, insufficient to apply theprobabilistic approach to an estimated tsunami return period for practical engineering application.
In the case of Peru, for example, a large number of earthquakes of magnitude 4 and over haveoccurred all over the country, but only those generated in the subduction zone with a magnitude of some
7 and over, and with a focal depth of less than 40-60 km, are able to generate tsunamis, so the numberof destructive tsunamis which have affected the Peruvian coast in the past five centuries is very small.
The most destructive earthquake and tsunami that struck Peru’s central coast where Lima, the country’s
capital city and its nearby seaport of Callao are located, occurred on October 28, 1746 with Magnitude
8.4 (Silgado, 1974) or some Mw 8.7-8.8 estimated by other seismologists. Jimenez et al. (2013) using
macroseismic historical data of the October 28, 1746 Callao, Peru earthquake and forward fitting
approach, reconstructed the coseismic displacement that caused the associated tsunami. The determinedmodel is consist of a length 550 km parallel to the coast line, a width of 140 km and the mean slip 11.5
m at depth 8.0 km. It is assumed to be an event with a return period of 1,000 years, as was the Great
East Japan earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. The Pacific Plate and the North American Plate
where east Honshu is located, and the more active segments where the Nazca Plate and the SouthAmerican Plate interact, are approaching each other at a rate of 7-9 cm/year; so historical data ofearthquakes and tsunamis that have occurred in those subduction zones might be used to “check” orcompare the result of modeling of the coseismic displacements of the 1746 earthquake and tsunami,
including the resulting tsunami height in the three virtual tidal gauges, two located strategically in Callao,
and one below the Lima cliff, in Miraflores, located 80 m.a.s.l.
Fig. 3 shows the tsunami inundation map of the shore of Lima and Callao with the location of
the three virtual gauges and Fig. 4 the simulated tsunami waves for these three key locations. See
Jimenez et al. (2013) for more detailed information.
At the tidal gauge at DHN located few hundred meters east-south east of the port of Callao,
the first wave had a height of 10 m when it arrived there 23 minutes after the earthquake. At La Punta,
Callao, where the Peruvian Navy Academy is located, the height of the first tsunami wave was some 9.6m, and at the foot of the Costa Verde cliff, the height of the first tsunami wave was 22.0 m. These data
are very useful for engineering application; however, they need to be applied carefully: according to oneof the members of the research team (personal communication with Erick Mas, 2014), for more precise
results it is necessary to improve the bathymetry data of the sea bottom where the ideal tsunami
propagates, using TUNAMI the programme developed by Imamura (1999) of Tohoku University.
One of the most interesting locations from the practical point of view is the run-up at thepresent location of the Callao seaport. The last station of subway Line 2, at present under construction,is located only some 400 m from the coastal line, and it will most probably be flooded by a tsunami witha 500 and 1,000 years return period. According to the best available data, the tsunami height there in
1746 was some 7 m., since a few people saved their lives by staying on top of the wall that surrounded
Callao at that time; and where the viceroy Manzo de Velazco founded the new Callao, in the present
district of Bellavista, with a monument near the corner of Av. Grau and Colina Street. The developmentof the port of Callao has substantially modified the hydraulics of the port, with the construction of sea
walls to permit ocean going ships’ operations.
According to the latest available data (Silgado, 1974), for the 1746 Callao, Peru earthquake
the magnitude was estimated 8.4 equivalent to Mw 8.7-8.8 (personal communication with Dr. Hernando
Tavera from IGP). This indicates that the 1746 earthquake and tsunami might have a return period of
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Fig. 3. Inundation map of Lima and thelocation of three virtual tidal gauges. Courtesyof Dr. Cesar Jimenez.

Fig. 4. Simulated tsunami waves. Courtesyof Dr. Cesar Jimenez.

9.0 with 1,000 years return period, as was the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake. The inundation mapof Jimenez et al. (2013) is also useful for taking engineering protection measures for the new second
landing strip of the Jorge Chavez Lima-Callao International Airport, which is located north-west andonly a few hundred meters from the coastal line and which will most probably be flooded by tsunamisof 500 and 1,000 years return period.
The tunnel under landing strip Nº 2 of the International Airport of Lima, which is underconstruction at present, is located 1.3 km from the coastal line and might be flooded by a tsunami witha return period of 1,000 years; and so the new tunnel and bridge have been designed with an earthquakeof 1,000 years return period, but promising the construction of masonry housing west of the Gambetta
Avenue up to near the border to reduce the destruction the tsunami may cause as well as to reduce its
reaches on land. However, this structural measure needs to be complemented with non- structural
measures to protect people living in the inundation area as well as the users of the tunnel under the new
runway N° 2 of Lima International Airport. The tunnel is not expected to suffer structural damage. The
driver has some 20 minutes to abandon the tunnel and no vehicles must be not permitted to enter into
the tunnel in the event of a large magnitude earthquake. Accesses to the tunnel need to be restricted.

4. PERU CASE AS RECIPIENT OF THE BENEFITS OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
There are various reasons for selecting Peru as a study case of the benefits received from international
cooperation. Peru and Mexico were selected by the Government of Japan to spread the high Japanesetechnology in Earthquake Engineering in South America and Central America, respectively, using, forexample, Third Country Seminars. The Japan-Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering Research andDisaster Mitigation - CISMID began its activities in 1986; and in Mexico CENAPRED started up soonafter. Peru and Indonesia are the two countries with the largest number of participants at the IISEE
during its more than 50 years of continuous profitable activities.
Following the 1970 Ancash, Peru earthquake with a death toll of 67,000, which was thedisaster with the highest death toll in the Americas in the 20th century (USGS Web Site-6), Peru hadpriority for the technical assistance from Japan. For example, two months after the Ancash disaster aJapanese Scientific Mission came to Peru, headed by the Prof. Ryohei Morimoto, who was at the timethe director of the Earthquake Research Institute of the University of Tokyo.
Maybe the best way to show the impact of the international technical assistance is describing
some of the products developed in Peru based on those cooperative activities. The most significant
products may be:- Sustainable Cities Programme 1998-2012 and its complementary activities for the period 2014-2021.
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1974, and.
Design and construction of seismic resistant buildings and infrastructures, focusing on schoolbuildings.

4.1. Sustainable Cities Programme in Peru
The development of the Sustainable Cities Programme is focused on its first attribute: the city´s physicalsafety. The other attributes of a sustainable city as defined in Peru are: orderly, healthy, culturally andphysically attractive, efficient functioning and development without having negative impact on theenvironment and cultural/historic heritage sites, governable and competitive (Kuroiwa, 2014,
specifically in the Second chapter: Sustainable City Agenda for the 21st Century; UN-HABITAT).
The physical safety of cities is provided by planning the cities based on their multihazard map
which includes all natural intense events and negative human activities threatening the cities built up
areas, including the foreseen expansion areas. Then the cities are expanded and densified in sectors withlow and medium hazards. The sector with high hazard is used, if a detailed site investigation shows that
it is economically feasible. Sectors with very high hazard are not permitted for urban uses.
The Japanese Scientific Mission of 1970 consisted of top researchers from the Earthquake
Research Institute of the University of Tokyo including a geologist and an earthquake engineer, headedby the director Prof. Ryohei Morimoto, a geologist. The mission also included an expert on geotechnicalengineering from BRI, MLIT. This mission stayed in Peru for as unusually long time, four months. Twoof Peruvian counterparts were former participants of the IISEE, seismologist at the IGP, and a civil
structural engineer from National University of Engineering (UNI: Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria,
Peru). So what it was learnt theoretically in Japan was put into practice at the full scale laboratory, thatwas the city of Chimbote, affected by the May 31st 1970 Ancash, Peru earthquake.
During the Individual Earthquake Engineering course (1974-75) at the IISEE one of the topic
was the requirement for a nuclear reactor site of the UN International Atomic Energy Agencies (IAEA)
sited in Vienna, Austria. The professor Makoto Watabe provided the necessary information andorganized a field trip to Tokai-mura Nuclear Power Plant where four reactors were functioning, and twohigh pressure models were under construction. That was the tools used to investigate the sitecharacteristic of a small nuclear research reactor in Huarangal, located some 35 km north-east of Lima.
The state of the art for developing multihazard maps was reached in Peru during the 1970s and 1980s
thanks to Japanese technical assistance.
In order to have wider use of multihazard maps, the method was simplified reducing operation
costs and data processing, and this method was used to develop the hazard maps of 175 cities
participating in the Peruvian Sustainable Cities Programme (SCP) 1998-2012 (Kuroiwa, 2014; UNHABITAT).
By comparing the UN-INDECI Regional Seismic Scenario 1992-95 in south-west Peru withthe real effects of the June 23, 2001 Arequipa, Peru earthquake, and also the hazard maps of Ica, Pisco,
Chincha, Tambo de Mora and Cañete developed in 2001-02, six years before the 15 August 2007 Pisco
Peru event, they proved that the multihazard maps are very useful for developing safe cities, expanding
and densifying in sector with low and medium hazards locating large industrial plants, selecting thelocation of essential facilities in the event of disasters, such as hospitals, school buildings, emergency
operation centers, and for designing, lifeline services such as water, energy, transportation andcommunications.
Fig. 5 shows the Pisco multihazard map developed in 2001-02 under the frame of SCP. As
may be observed all the damage occurred in sectors with very high hazard (in red) and high hazard(orange). The red sector is threatened by tsunami and soil liquefaction as really happened during theearthquake. In Fig. 6 (5) it is possible to observe fishing boats landed in San Andres.
In Fig. 6, (1) shows liquefaction and lateral spread of the Panamerican Highway approaching
the bridge from south to north, that crosses the Pisco river in its lower part, so it is always humid. Fig.
6 (2) shows the damage to water and sewage pipes due to the soil high seismic intensity VIII (MMI) andlarge soil deformations. The soil there consists of fine sand and silt with the water table near the surface.

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Fig. 5. Multihazard map of Pisco developed during 2001-2002 under the frame of Peru
Sustainable City Programme (INDECI/UNDP). Courtesy of INDECI.

Fig. 6. Effect of the Pisco earthquake of August 15, 2007. All photos taken by the author, except
picture (5) taken by the Peru Air Force and provided to the author by INDECI.

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Figs. 6 (3), (4) and (6) show the collapse of two R. C. building without seismic-resistant design,and the church of Pisco with adobe walls and its roof collapsed over members of families of some 85
persons, who perished. Fig. 6 (5) shows small fishing boats that landed in San Andres, artisanal fishingport. The tsunami wave high and inundation limit agreed with the estimation made 6 years before the2007 earthquake and tsunami.
The hazard map of the locality of Tambo de Mora was developed in 2001-2002 as part of thehazard map of the city of Chincha, the provincial capital. Fig. 7 (1) shows the typical volcano of soilliquefaction that extensively occurred there. Fig. 7 (2) shows the lateral spread of a wall at the Tambode Mora jail. The initial clearance between two walls was only 2.5 cm (one inch). The brick house of
Fig. 7 (3) and the Jail of Tambo de Mora Fig. 7 (4), both settled 0.55 m.
Figs. 7 (5) and (6) show high adobe walls with no reinforcement of a church, 4.2 m high walls
and a deposit with it walls of 2.8 m high, and no roof. Both adobe constructions had no damage at all.
Why were the microzonation effects so clear in Tambo de Mora?. The lower sector of Tambode Mora consists of fine sand and silt water saturated soil and extensive liquefaction occurred as
predicted six years prior to the earthquake. The seismic intensity there was IX MMI.
The adobe constructions are built on top of a small hill that was cut, to have flat area as seenin Fig. 7 (5) and Fig. 8. Soil at that level is very dry and compact. The intensity there was less than VI
MMI.

Fig. 7. Microzonation effects in Tambo de Mora and photos taken in August, 2007 after the
Earthquake of August 15, 2007. (1) Volcano of soil liquefaction. (2) Lateral spreading, a“door was opened”. (3) Settlement of 0.80m 1.00m. (4) Settlement of bearing walls andbroken concrete floor. (5) Undamaged adobe church. (6) Adobe fence, only 200 m from theTambo de Mora main square (Plaza de Armas) where soil liquefaction occurred. 7) Largeand abundant cracks were opened north of Tambo de Mora where also a 3 km long and 0.6
km wide block was displaced a few meters toward the ocean. Microzonation map is acourtesy of INDESI. All photos are taken by the author.

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Fig. 8. Microzonation effects in a 50 m long street in
Tambo de Mora. Photo taken by the author, December
2013.
Fig. 8 was taken a year ago, showing the church (1) with no damage (2) is a one story highbrick construction with severe damage, and the brick house (3) settled some 0.40 m. From (1) to (3)there are some 40m. Notice that the change of slope of the street level, mark the limit between the low
fine grain water saturated soil and the very dry and compact soil.
The SCP of INDECI/UNDP was financed continuously by the Peruvian Prime Minister´s
Office during 1998-2012, however the results were not as expected, because of lack of administrative
capacity of the local authorities and the necessary financing. However now, the Ministry of Economy
and Finance (MEF) depending on the results, is providing rotative funding. From 1998 to 2012, thehazard maps, land use planning for 175 Peruvian cities, together with 4 to 8 disaster mitigation profile
projects were developed as shown in Table 1.
During COP 20, i.e., the United Nations Conference on Climatic Change, developed in Lima
Peru, from December 1 to 12, 2014, in a special presentation of the Sustainable Programme Cities by
the Peru Civil Defense Institute (INDECI) and UNDP on December 5, 2014, up dated to 2014, reported
that it have been produced 189 investigation of technical scientific nature, including reviewing of someof the investigations, trying to protect 8,300,000 inhabitants and cities of Ecuador included in the joint
program are: Huayquillas (50,000), Machada (218,000), Arenillas (20,000) and Macará (15,000). Notethat the number in brackets is the inhabitants in each city, so the total population included are 303,000.
The Peruvian Association of Engineers (CIP: Colegio de Ingenieros del Peru) with over
150,000 members of all specialties with its regional branches, together with decentralized offices of
Peru´s Civil Defense is going to provide technical assistance to the municipalities to complete theimplementation of the SCP all over the country, so that by the year 2021, year of the bicentennialcommemoration of Peru´s independence, Peruvian cities may be much safer that they are at present, toimprove the life quality of their residents.
The SCP of INDECI/UNDP has received national and international recognition. In 2012various UN agencies including UN-HABITAT, UNDP, the World Bank and the Organization ofAmerican States (OAS) called an open contest to present the most significant projects on disaster
reduction. Out of 81 projects presented by Latin American and Caribbean countries, Peru´s Sustainable
Cities Programme was selected as the best.

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Table 1. The SCP was developed for 175 Peruvian cities from 1998 to 2012. Additionally four
cities in Ecuador were studied with the support of the Organization of American States.
With the participation of professors and researchers of National Universities located in theregions +. Courtesy of INDECI. The author was the chief technical advisor of the Peru
Sustainable Cities Programme 1998-2012 and formulated the action plan from 2014 to 2021.

4.2. Confined Masonry Housing
The confined masonry construction method was developed from 1970 to 1974 in Chimbote city,
seriously affected by the 1970 Ancash, Peru earthquake. It was developed by voluntary work of 25
graduate students from the Department of Civil Engineering of the National University of Engineering(FIC/UNI) who donated 700 months-men.
First, field inspections were made to estimate the extent of the task. The preliminary estimation
was that some 5,000 houses needed retrofitting works. The main conclusion was that brick houses
without R. C. columns and tie beams suffered severe damage or collapsed. Due to shape of theconstruction lot, 8 m wide and 20 m long, this resulted in a low wall density in the direction parallel tothe main facade and high wall density in the walls perpendicular to the former. In the solutions wereapplied what had been learned in the field inspections, and two approaches that had been learned at the
IISEE that the wall density is a good indicator of the house safety quality and that in Japan R. C. shear
walls were considered to be very efficient for taking horizontal seismic forces.
Fig. 9 shows a typical retrofitting project in Chimbote. Notice that originally the house had
only 4 columns located in its corners with acceptable wall density the “y” direction but low in the “x”
direction: Each of the walls was drawn, including fissures and cracks, and classified in a few types. In
case of cracks they were cleaned with air presence filled with mortal cement-sand, and steel meshes
were fixed on top and again mortal was added. Notice the 7 new columns and two R.C. shear wall addedin the “x” direction.

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Fig. 9. A representative retrofitting project in Chimbote, 1970-1974, that was provided free to anaffected family in Chimbote in 1972. Courtesy of FIC/UNI.

Fig. 10. Two story brick building being converted into confined masonry. Courtesy of FIC/UNI.

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Fig. 11. Residential area of the city of Ica. Engineered confined masonryhouses that did not suffer any damage during the August 15, 2007 earthquake.
Photo taken by the author.
So Fig. 10 is the results of careful analysis of more than 2,500 brick houses for which weredeveloped in detailed retrofitting and reinforcement projects, and some 1,000 brick houses that collapsedor suffered damage beyond the possibility of being recovered and a few that did not suffer any damage,so that Fig. 9 is the results of 3,500 investigated houses. It was applied in the residence of a Catholic
priest located in Miraflores district, Lima Peru where R.C. columns have been added as well and inverted
beam on the roof firmly connected in this two story residence. Applying Fig. 10 without column for wall
density of 5%, the damage level is category 3, crack and partial displacement, but adding spatial system
of R.C. column and tie beam the damage level is reduce to 1, small fissures. If that happens, by painting
the walls, the fissures disappear, waiting for the next intense earthquake a few decades ahead.
Fig. 11 shows the engineered confined masonry houses that did not suffer any damage during
the August 15, 2007 earthquake. The method was disseminated at UNI from 1975 and almost
immediately in other Peruvian universities. So it is expected that engineered houses in Lima and otherimportant cities, will not suffer significant damage in future earthquakes affecting the area.
4.3. Safe School Buildings
During the 1996 Nazca, Peru earthquake about 50% of R.C. buildings that suffered severe damage were

Fig. 12. Damage due to short column structuraldefect in Lima during the 1974 earthquake.
Courtesy of National Police Academy in Lima,
November 2007.

Fig. 13. Left block designed with Peru Seismic
Code of 1977 and right building with the 1997
version. Photo taken by the author in Ica.
September 2007.

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Fig. 14. Safe Peruvian school building in the Arequipa Region, Peru. Phototaken by the author, June 2001.
school buildings, due to the structural defects of short columns, as also happened during the 1990 Luzon,
Philippines earthquake and the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan earthquake. The Peru Seismic Code of NTE 0.30
approved by MVCS in 1997 eliminated the short column structural defect by making two small changes
to the previous 1977 seismic code. The permitted lateral drift was reduced from 0.010 to 0.007 and theimportance factor was increased from U=1.3 to U= 1.5 as corresponds to essential facilities in the eventof disaster. Fig. 12 shows the frequent failure due to short columns. Fig. 13 shows a school building at
San José de Los Molinos in Ica affected by the August 15, 2007 Pisco, Peru earthquake. The left block
was designed with the 1977 seismic code and the right one, designed with 1997 version. Fig. 14 showsa safe school building that instead of having short columns, has R. C. shear wall separated 2 cm fromthe filling walls. The back facade has the same design as the main one.
In Japan since early the 1920s rigid shear walls were regarded as highly resistant structuralelements. In a very special lecture given by the Waseda University, Emeritus Professor Dr. Tachu Naito
said at the Naito Commemorative Building (“Naito Kinen-Kan” in Japanese), early in 1962, that inspired
in a ship traveling back from the USA, late in 1919 when a severe storm shook the ship violently at the
Aleutian island, Alaska; the ship had, thin steel plates but so arranged horizontally and vertically thatthey controlled the entire ship from being deformed. Dr. Tachu Naito designed four rigid buildings with
R.C. shear walls and rigid floors, which did not suffer damage during the Great Kanto earthquake inJapan, September 1, 1923 (e.g., Hammer, 2011), as for example the Bank of Japan and Kabuki Theater
Building.
There are some other tools developed in Peru based on Japanese Earthquake Engineering;
technology and also many other problems remain to be faced, such as the very vulnerable old adobe andquincha constructions located in severe tsunami inundation zones in Callao. Also the housing of thepoor people living in slums around Lima in non-engineered brick dwellings without any reinforcement
and located in zones of high natural hazard. Also in the next intense earthquake that is going to affectLima, non-structural damage and building content will be important.
Fig. 15 shows non-structural damage and building contents in the Pisco Custom Office, a threestory R. C. building, where the seismic intensity was VIII MMI during the 2007 Pisco earthquake.
In Lima in spite of the distance of over 200 km from the epicenter of the 2007 Pisco earthquake,Mw 8.0 USGS, there was important damage of those types in tall R. C. building, such as the SUNAT,
the tax collecting institution, a 14 story building that suffered severe damage from the 5th to 14th story.
Authorities were persuaded to relocate its computer center from the 9th story to the 3rd where the nontorsional vibrations and the lateral drift are acceptable.

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Fig. 15. Three story R.C. Custom building in Pisco with non-structural damage and inits content. Photos kindly provided to the author by the administrator of Pisco Custom
Office.

5. CONCLUDING REMARKS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Since the January 2005 UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction held in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan, theresults of the investigations of two extreme, unexpected disasters have become available: the Indian
Ocean Tsunami Mw. 9.2 of December 26, 2004 with a death toll of some 230,000 persons, and the Great
East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, Mw. 9.0 of March 11, 2011 with total losses of over US$ 400,000
million including indemnification to communities contaminated by the nuclear accident of Fukushima
Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. The studies of these two events have left very valuable lessons in scienceand technology, and their application to the engineering practice. The 2010 Maule, Chile Earthquake
Mw 8.8, added important knowledge and experience. Also from the 1994 Northridge, the USA
earthquake and the 1995 Kobe, Japan event, it has been possible to recover important lessons that inmany aspects coincide with the results of the mega-events mentioned previously.
The main conclusions of those earthquakes and tsunamis may be summarized as follows.
1. Surface geology is critical in the seismic intensity, the damage caused to buildings andinfrastructures, and the geographic distribution of the damage.
2. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami gave impulse to paleotsunami research in countries surroundingthat ocean, in Japan and elsewhere.
3. The large amount of geophysical data recorded in north east Honshu, Japan one, of the world’s mostdensely instrumented regions, permitted the measurement of vertical and horizontal coseismic
displacements. The data analyzed and interpreted results were considered to be among the world’s
outstanding scientific advancements of the year 2011.
4. The results of 2 and 3 are allowing practical engineering application, such as finding the tsunami
height for a return period of 1,000 years, impossible up to only very few years ago, e.g., on the west
coast of South America, where the scarce historical data on tsunamis go back only 500 years.
5. In 1995 Kobe, Japan, the 2010 Maule, Chile and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquakes, thosebuildings designed with seismic codes of 1980-90 or newer, practically did not suffer structural
seismic damage. In Peru, during the 2001 Arequipa, and the 2007 Pisco earthquakes, schoolbuildings designed with the Peruvian Seismic Code NTE. 0.30 of 1997 did not suffer any damage.
During the 1996 Nazca, Peru earthquake as well as during the 1990 Luzon, Philippines and the 1999
Chi-Chi, Taiwan earthquakes, damage in R. C. school buildings was about 50% of the total affected,
due to the short column structural defect.
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seismic isolators and energy dissipation devices adequately protected buildings from high seismic
intensity. There are a number of high-rise buildings in Sendai and Tokyo that did not suffer damage.
In some areas in Sendai the seismic intensity reached X MMI.
7. During the 2010 Maule, Chile and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake the damage due to soilliquefaction was very extensive even at distances of over 100 km from the seismic source: in Japan,
along the Tokyo bay and rivers north of Tokyo that empty their water into the Pacific Ocean; inChile, humid mining tails dams distant from the seismic source suffered severe damage. Soilliquefaction also occurred during the 2001 Arequipa, Peru earthquake, which is a very arid region.
It clearly occurred on very humid soil as well during the 2007 Pisco, Peru earthquake.
Soil liquefaction is a matter that needs to be technically considered to reduce losses, as soilliquefaction is one of the main reasons for losses occurred in the 2011 Great East Japan and in the2010 Maule, Chile earthquakes.
8. During the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake, severe damage was caused to non-structural building
elements and their contents. For example in hospitals, on average, damage to structural elements
was only 8 % of the total losses, and damage to non-structural elements and building contents was
92 % because medical equipment is expensive. In the 2010 Maule, Chile and the 2011 Great East
Japan earthquakes, damage to non-structural building components and building contents represented
a very high percentage of the building’s total losses. In Chile, progress is being made to protect thosebuilding components and contents. In Peru such protection has been provided in a very few cases.
For example in a 14-story public building in Peru, severe torsional vibration above the fifth story
caused the computer center located on the ninth story to suffer severe damage, so the computer
center was relocated to the third story, where there was no torsional vibration and the lateral drift is
acceptable.
9. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and the 2011 Great East Japan tsunami have shown again thatbathymetry and topography have an important influence on the tsunami wave height, the directionof attack, and foundation scouring which depend also on the soil type and whether it has grass andtrees. So if the tsunami effects on land are included in the multihazard map, and this is used for safe
city planning, the damage from future tsunamis might be substantially reduced. In Peru an MSc. CE
thesis developed at the National University of Engineering (i.e., Condori, 2014) has determined thetsunami effects on buildings, finding the water pressure on columns and shear walls. It is expectedthat by middle of 2016, Peru might have a draft for tsunami-resistant buildings, thanks to the supportof Servicio Nacional de Capacitación para la Industria de Construcción (SENCICO), the buildingcode regulation institutional arm of the Peruvian Ministry of Housing, Construction, and Sanitation(MVCS).
10. It is assumed that if R. C. or steel buildings are designed with the current seismic code and they arealso made tsunami-resistant, and adequately located in tsunami inundation zones, the higher levelsof high-rise buildings may be used as refuges with vertical evacuation. For elderly persons and smallchildren unable to evacuate quickly, this is a matter of life or death, for example in La Punta locatedin a long narrow peninsula only 3 to 4 m a.s.l.
11. At present there are a number of useful tools to reduce disaster as a part of DRM developed inscientifically and technically advanced countries like Japan and the USA. But the problem is how
to transfer their benefits to the main end users, the poor people living in disaster-prone Third World
countries. Such countries need efficient intermediate steps, such as university graduate school, forthem to train school teachers, because teachers are part of the communities where they live and workand they can reach the poor of the present and future generations for a better quality of life.
Admittedly, this is a very difficult challenge, not easily solved. With training, they will be able toreact quickly and correctly and to face different disaster scenarios threatening them to know where
their homes are to be located and how to make them safe against the area’s hazards. UNESCO could
help to strengthen the country’s education regarding disaster reduction, so the UNESCO
representatives in disaster-prone developing countries need to have knowledge and experience inearth sciences, management skills and personal motivation to promote education on DRM. In adeveloping country like Peru, there is an urgent need for such a UNESCO representative.
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adequate level to implement such an immense task. In this regard, the IISEE, with a connection withthe top professors and researchers of Japan, might facilitate this task by reducing the time so thatsuch very valuable and important lessons and conclusions may reach the poor people of developing
countries, so social inclusion is not only a semantic attempt, but it is really a task to be implemented.
12. The most important report on the Great East Japan Earthquake, prepared by the Japanese
Government GFDRR and the World Bank (Rahangheri and Ishiwatari, 2014), consists of a set of 32
Knowledge Notes, grouped into six thematic clusters:
1) Structural measures
2) Non-structural measures3) Emergency response
4) Reconstruction planning5) Hazard and risk information and decision making
6) Economics of disaster risk, risk management and risk financing.
This report entitled “Learning from Megadisasters” is a very valuable document covering all phasesof DRM, however the last thematic cluster is not so familiar to earth scientists, engineers andarchitects in Peru, and probably this is true in most developing countries. On the other hand,knowledge of economists on disaster risk reduction is scarce. So the author approached the Graduate
Department on Economy of the University of Piura in Lima, and lectured on business continuity
planning (BCP) and business continuity management (BCM). The lecture was as iterative as
possible, to learn from each other. During the commemoration of the 140th anniversary of Japan
Peru Diplomatic relations, both sides invited the author to offer a lecture on Business Continuity
and Planning and the Economic Resilience in Peru. Its content was a proposal focused on the needfor clusters to be included in a comprehensive DRM in Peru and other developing countries locatedin a disaster-prone region.
According to data existing in the USA, some 15 % of the total investment of a life cycleof an industrial project is dedicated to the conception and planning, including the investment onland purchase, construction and equipment procurement. The remaining 85 %, on average, isdedicated to operation and maintenance, In Peru and some other developing countries, maintenanceis usually poor. If the industrial plant is affected by an intense natural phenomenon, and the damage
is so important that the plant is put out of operation, the cost of structural repairs and reinforcement,
and cost of replacing equipment, need to be charged to maintenance, including the production
stoppage, and loss of clients, that may never be recovered. The production chain needs to beorganized to include the close of the business, which is not usual; except in mining operations: whenthe mineral is exhausted, an important part of the total business planning needs to include the closeof a mine to deal with the environmental liabilities.
According to Nomura Holdings, Inc., a Japanese financial holding included in the Nomura
Group that provides investment and related services to individual and government customers on a
global basis, with an emphasis on securities businesses, and also to the advice of Rahangheri andIshiwatari (2014), the best way to implement Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and BusinessContinuity Management (BCM) is to investigate the lessons left by past disasters. In this sense it isinteresting to mention an example that occurred during the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake andTsunami, with regard to the chain of production when one link failed and the whole production
process collapsed. An important part of an automobile engine that was being manufactured in the
Tohoku region had its production interrupted. This caused the reduction of the production of some
600,000 cars in Japan, the rest of Asia, Europe and the USA for about six months. This example
shows that DRM needs to be treated holistically, to avoid the bankruptcy of industrial corporations
in developing countries.
To absorb and apply the many lessons left by the megadisasters that have occurred in Asiaand in Chile will take time, so developing countries need to make a great effort to apply the latest
technology to protect their people and investments as soon as possible.
13. Education of the general public on basic knowledge of disaster risk reduction is essential indeveloping countries to save their lives, as they will face different scenarios, which they will have

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to respond to quickly and adequately. The Kamaishi Miracle and how Chileans reacted during the2010 tsunami are encouraging occurrences. In Chile, even though the alarm had been officiallycanceled due to a technical mistake, since the people felt a long and intense earthquake, most ofthem went ahead and evacuated the tsunami inundation zones to high lands.
With regard to education UNESCO might play a key role intensifying education on disasterrisk reduction.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Deep gratitude is expressed to OTCA, at present JICA, for training the author for over 50 years. To theauthorities of the IISEE, BRI/MILT for housing him during its regular Earthquake Engineering Course
1961-62 and the Individual Course in 1975-76.

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