Study Trip Report on
SHIZUGAWA HOSPITAL AND SCHOOL BUILDINGS
By: Atifah MOHD ALWI and Siti Norbaizura MAT SAID (S-Course)With estimates of 9.0 in moment magnitude by most of the seismological institutions, the March 11, 2011,
Tohoku earthquake in northern Honshu is now placed as the fourth largest earthquake in the world since
1900 and the largest powerful earthquake to have hit Japan since modern instrumental recordings initiatedmore than 130 years ago. The maximum Japanese seismic intensity is 7, in which was observed inKurihara area (northern part of Miyagi prefecture) while the strongest peak ground acceleration recorded
is 2933gal (Tsukidate). According to the National Police Agency as of July 15, 2011, the estimatedcasualties are more than 20,000. A study trip to Miyagi Prefecture which conducted from 5 to 7
September, 2011 involved several places namely the Research Center for Prediction of Earthquakes andVolcanic Eruptions and the Laboratory of Professor Motosaka in the Tohoku University, the Sendai
Government Office Building No. 3, the Ishinomaki Tax Office and the Ishinomaki Harbor Combination
Building, affected and damaged areas near Onagawa town, and the evacuation center, the Shizugawa
Hospital and the Shizugawa High School in Minamisanriku-Town.
This report, however, only summarizes field observation (after almost half year from itsoccurrence) of damaged buildings in affected Shizugawa area in Minamisanriku-Town. The building
shown in Figure 1 is the Shizugawa public hospital, located in the Town of Minamisanriku, withmountains of debris in front of the building. Tsunami had attacked up to the fourth floor and many
hospitalized people were killed by the waves. Some who were able to flee to the fifth floor (left-building)were survived.

Figure 1. Shizugawa Hospital
Takeshi Kanno, a 31-year-old doctor, never thought that he would save lives in his line of workas many at one time as he did on March 11. He, being on duty when he heard the tsunami alert,
immediately began moving patients to the highest floor, helping dozens of people in the short window
between the 9.0 magnitude quake and the deadly wave. When the wall of water arrived, Kanno watched it
swallow the street in three minutes, taking the patients he couldn’t move with it. “We went downstairs,
and everyone was gone,” he says. Over the next two days, Kanno refused to leave those he had helped
survive. When evacuation helicopter arrived, he waited until the last of his patients had gone before heleft, too. Three days after the quake, he at last made himself back to his wife, just hours before the birth oftheir second child, a boy named Rei. The name evokes two meanings, a beam of light in English and thewisdom to overcome hardship in Chinese and Japanese. He is now one of the 100 world’s most influential
people tallied up by the TIME (Time100, Vol. 177, No 17|2011). The following figures show somebuildings near the Shizugawa hospital.

BCEA
D

Figure 2. Some buildings near the Shizugawa hospital.
There were more than 300 aged people who fled up to the fifth floor of the building marked with A. Later,these people survived and were rescued by a helicopter. The area covered by a lot of debris (marked withB) was once a place where a group of students played before the deadly wave arrived. These students thenfled to an apartment (building marked with C), trying to climb up to the top of the building but only 12
from them were survived. Behind the building marked with E was a police station (marked with D) where
one policeman was killed. He was ordered by the superintendent to stay since he was on duty, while theremaining policemen were asked to evacuate. A railway line near to this police station was broken butthere was no casualties reported because no train running during this time. This place was heavilyaffected, and had remained isolated when all communication means were broken down. Those people
who survived were rescued by helicopters.

Figure 3. Disaster Management Center
Figure 3 shows the damaged disaster management center office. Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai, 55, ordered
about 50 of his staff members to stay here in this building to make announcement of the upcoming
tsunami. He thought that the embankment would protect them from tsunami but unfortunately, thetsunami was so huge that it reached until the top of the building. Some of them who held the rail withtheir back facing the wave were safe but those with position facing the wave were washed away by this2powerful tsunami. It is believed that many people were killed in this area in which two of them were still
making announcement to the public to flee from tsunami, until their last breath. This building issuggested to be preserved as monument. However, some of those who relate to the victims don’t want topreserve here.

Shizugawa juniorhigh‐school

Shizugawa elementaryschool

Figure 4. Locations of the elementary and junior high schools, respectively. (from right to left)
Figure 4 shows the locations of the elementary and the junior high-schools (from right to left)
which located in hills area, served as an evacuation places following the tsunami. As an example that canbe learned, it must be principal to construct public facilities on the higher portion because those structure
will be used for shelters, especially to the locations that prone to natural disasters. Similarly the buildings
facing the sea should be a high rise building so that it can be used as a shelter when tsunami strikes. AsRoger Bourke White Jr. in his anatomy of memorable disaster says, ‘A memorable disaster isn't closely
related to the magnitude of losses or the victims, either. It is the survivors that make disasters
memorable.’ One of the survivors, Mr. Goto who shared his experience during our visit to an evacuation
center in Minamisanriku-Town really gave a big impression on us about how powerful a nature can be,
regardless of how well a nation is prepared or how high the technology of the countermeasures in place tomitigate the impact of disasters. Disaster does not care about borders and can affect any place. On behalfof the people in Japan that received assistance from all over the world, he appreciated it. He trusted thatthe whole world is actually connected and helpful towards hardships.
The March 11 earthquake and the subsequent tsunami that rushed towards and devastated theshores of Honshu Island in Japan, however, would have been a substantially larger disaster than it alreadywas, were it not for the well functioning warning systems on the Japanese islands. Awareness on theimportance of good disaster risk management should be raised in all countries and countermeasures inmitigating the impact of disaster should be taken, considering both financial and political aspects ofrespective countries.

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