Chapter 28
Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)
in Schools
Field of expertise: School Disaster Safety, Disaster Risk Reduction Education, International
Educational Development

Aiko Sakurai
Translated by Catherine Sachi Kikuchi

Summary
One of the major lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake on disaster risk reduction (DRR)
in schools was the reaffirmation that they have an obligation to ensure the safety of children fromnatural disasters. Based on this lesson, there is an urgent need for schools across the country todevelop effective school DRR systems that take into account the local characteristics of thecommunity in which the school is located. The question now is, in order to prepare for the next
disaster, how can we widely share the measures that have been established based on lessons
learned in Miyagi Prefecture?
Keywords: local disaster characteristics, school disaster risk management , use of maps, DRR
education , teacher training

Introduction
Disaster risk reduction in schools in Japan encompases community safety and traffic
safety, which are considered to be part of school safety. Since the Great Hanshin-Awaji
Earthquake, this has been reviewed and expanded based on the experiences and lessons learned
from major disasters. However, when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck on a Friday
afternoon, a time when most children were at school, the question of how schools can protect
children's lives was raised.

1: Problems Revealed by the Great East Japan Earthquake
What happened?!
Disaster risk reduction in schools is expected to function on the basis of both disaster risk
management and disaster risk reduction education, as well as organizational activities such as inschool training and cooperation with families and communities to ensure the smooth1implementation of these interrelated activities. Disaster risk reduction education in schools is
mainly implemented throughout the educational activities of schools, based on curriculum
guidelines. Disaster risk management in schools is aimed at ensuring the safety of students andothers, and includes the preparation of manuals for responding to disasters. Safety management of
the school environment, such as earthquake resistance of school buildings, is also included indisaster risk management. Articles 26 to 30 of the School Health and Safety Law have provisions
regarding school safety.
The Great East Japan Earthquake occurred at 2:46 p.m. on Friday, March 11, 2011.
Therefore, many students were in school at the time of the earthquake. There were no fatalities
among the students, teachers, and staff due to the shaking during the earthquake, but there wassevere damage caused by the tsunami, especially in the coastal areas.
The reality of the damage
According to the 2010 White Paper by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology (MEXT), a total of 645 students, faculty and staff from kindergartens to universities
were killed, and 125 went missing in the Great East Japan Earthquake. In addition, there werecases of high school students who were engaged in extracurricular activities at facilities outside theschool, or who were affected by the tsunami while leaving school or after being returned to theirparents or guardians. In particular, 74 out of 108 students, and 10 teachers and staff of Okawa
Elementary School in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, were killed by the tsunami.
In terms of physical damage to educational facilities, many were completely or partiallydestroyed, flooded, or rendered unusable due to ground subsidence caused by the earthquake andinundation by the tsunami, and 193 public schools alone required reconstruction or large-scalerestoration work (according to the 2010 White Paper by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology). In many school facilities, non-structural materials such as ceilings,
lights, and windows fell, equipment toppled over, which confirmed the urgent need to improve theearthquake resistance of non-structural materials as well as the school buildings themselves. A
large number of people evacuated to schools that were spared from the disaster, and issues wereraised regarding the role of schools in times of disaster, as well as the disaster preventionfunctions and management of these school facilities, along with cooperation with the local
communities.
In the affected schools, classes were canceled and education was suspended for aminimum of one month and a maximum of almost two months, including spring break. Even after
the schools reopened, classes were held jointly at other schools, or in rented or temporaryclassrooms. It took many more years for education to resume in the renovated and reconstructedschools. This confirmed the need for plans to continue normal activities and prepare for the early
return to classes in the event of a disaster.

2: Paradigms Destroyed by the Earthquake
Conventional wisdom and necessary responses
According to a survey conducted by MEXT, 2,052 or about 90% of schools and preschools
in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures where students were present at the time of the Great
East Japan Earthquake, had provisions for evacuation in the event of an earthquake in their crisis
management manuals. On the other hand, among 149 schools that were located in areas thatwere predicted to be inundated by tsunamis according to hazard maps or that were actually hit by2

tsunamis, only about 50% had provisions for evacuation of students in case of tsunamis, indicatingthat schools were inadequately prepared for a major tsunami (Ministry of Education, Culture,Sports, Science and Technology, 2012). The aforementioned Okawa Elementary School waslocated outside the inundation area on the tsunami inundation hazard map prepared by Miyagi
Prefecture, but was hit by the tsunami.
A civil suit was filed by some of the bereaved families of Okawa Elementary School against
Ishinomaki City and Miyagi Prefecture, seeking damages for the school's negligence. In October
2019, the Supreme Court rejected the appeal by the city and the prefecture, and the decision wasfinalized, recognizing the negligence of the school and the government, which were responsible forthe lives of the children. In the first instance, the court ruled that the teachers, who were aware thatthe tsunami was approaching the area around the school and that they should evacuate
immediately, tried to take the children to an inappropriate evacuation site even though they had aduty of care to evacuate the children from the schoolyard to the hill behind the school after theearthquake. The school was found to be negligent. The court of appeal's decision was not limited
to tsunami evacuation, but also brought into question how schools can ensure the safety ofstudents and others in the event of a natural disaster, and how school disaster risk management
should be conducted, including preparation and emergency responses. Article 26 of the School
Health and Safety Law clearly states that schools are obligated to ensure the safety of children
from natural disasters. The Court of Appeal ruled that the principal and others had theresponsibility to revise the crisis management manual by specifying tertiary evacuation routes,
methods, and sites suitable for the safe evacuation of children. It also said that the knowledge andexperience required for schools to fulfill their obligation to ensure the safety of children without failmust be at a much higher level than the average knowledge and experience of the local
population.

3: A New ApproachIn accordance with the School Health and Safety Law, MEXT formulated a Plan for thePromotion of School Safety in 2012 to promote empirical and scientific school safety initiatives ineach school. In response to the Supreme Court's decision, Miyagi Prefecture established theMiyagi Prefecture School Disaster Prevention System Study Council and set forth 3 basic policies
for new efforts in the future. The first is to strengthen the ability of teachers, staff, and students torespond to disasters under various circumstances. The second policy is to develop an effective
school DRR system based on the characteristics of local disasters, and the third is to build acommunity-wide school DRR system through cooperation with local communities and relatedorganizations.
The International Collaborating Center for Disaster Education, Research andImplementation established in the International Research Institute of Disaster Science (IRIDeS), ispromoting practical research through collaboration with schools and an interdisciplinary team ofexperts from earthquake disaster prevention, geography, and pedagogy to promote school DRR in
Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture. We have been working on the development of a model fordisaster recovery and DRReducation in the affected areas, paying careful attention to the changing
conditions of schools and students and the awareness of teachers and staff as the years passsince the disaster. We are also working on the development of a teacher training program thatuses maps to help teachers understand the disaster risks in their school districts. These are all
attempts to implement university researchers’ expertise in order to expand school DRR nationwide
so that we can prepare for the next disaster based on the experience of the Great East JapanEarthquake.
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4: Achievements and the Future
A new approach to disaster science
The disaster recovery and disaster risk reduction education model, Reconstruction andDisaster Risk Reduction (R-DRR) Mapping, was implemented for three years beginning in 2012,
which was one year after the disaster. Periods of integrated study were used to do this atelementary schools in Ishinomaki City. The aim of the project was to create an opportunity for thechildren to record the reconstruction of the disaster-affected school district by themselves, face
their experiences of the disaster, and be proactively involved in the reconstruction process throughwalking around the city and making maps. In the 2018 school year, we conducted a follow-up
survey of third-year junior high school students to verify the effectiveness of this reconstruction
mapping project. It was confirmed that students who had experienced the project as fourth-gradestudents in 2013 had a higher awareness of "having pride and love for the community as amember of the community and thinking about the future of the community" than those who had notbeen involved in the project (Sakurai et al., 2020).
At present, R-DRR mapping for multi-hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, andlandslides, is being practiced in elementary and junior high schools in Ishinomaki City (Figure 281). It is expected to be further developed in cooperation with social studies and geography inelementary and junior high schools as a local study to understand the disaster risks in the school
district by using topographical maps and hazard maps. In addition, a guide for teachers on how topractice R-DRR mapping has been developed so that they can make lesson plans according tothe actual situation of their school districts (International Collaborating Center of Disaster
Education Research and Implementation, 2019). In addition, we developed a model to trainteachers to be able to look at maps and understand the disaster risks in their school districts. We
are aiming to strengthen their map-reading skills through this program, and cooperate with them sothat their school school disaster response manuals will take into account the characteristics of local
disasters.

Figure 28-1. An example of a DRR map, using topographical classification maps and hazard maps
(Inai district, Ishinomaki City). (Source) From left: Geospatial Information Authority of Japan floodcontrol topographic map, former Kitakami River flood inundation area map by the Tohoku Regional
Development Bureau, and Ishinomaki City sediment disaster hazard map, with additions made byeach; right: DRR map by students of Inai Junior High School in 2019.

Conclusion - from the author
In order to realize community-based DRR in schools, it is essential for schools, local
communities, governments, university researchers, and other experts to work together on a regularbasis to improve the disaster preparedness of teachers and students by incorporating expert
knowledge and local information in an easy-to-understand manner. The next task is to conduct4

practical research on the integration of school DRR and community DRR . DRR is an extension ofdaily life, as it involves understanding the nature and lifestyle of the community in which we live.
Regardless of one's social position, being actively involved in DRR in one's own community as aresident and a parent or guardian is a step toward community-based DRR in schools.

References
International Collaborating Center of Disaster Education Research and Implementation. (2019). A
guide for practicing reconstruction and disaster risk reduction (R-DRR) mapping: Learn the natureand life of your hometown. Tohoku University, International Research Institute of Disaster Science.
http://drredu-collabo.sakura.ne.jp/mapping (In Japanese)
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. (2012). Research Report on theResponse of Schools to the Great East Japan Earthquake. Government of Japan, Sports andYouth Bureau of the Health Education Division.
https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kenko/anzen/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2012/07/12/1323511_1.pdf (InJapanese)!
Sakurai, A., Sato, T., and Murayama, Y. (2020). Impact evaluation of a school-based disastereducation program in a city affected by the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami
disaster. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 47.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101632

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