PartⅡ: Report on the GEJET 13:00 - 15:00

Waste management toward restoration
Prof Masanobu Ishikawa, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University"A Process of Improvement of Law and Institution in Disaster Management: Lessons
from East Japan"
Prof Yuka Kaneko, Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University

Collaboration for generating Hope
Prof Masayoshi Morioka, Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University"Community recovery of Tohoku disaster hit area and recovery supports from outside"
Prof Yoshiteru Murosaki, Kwansei Gakuin University

damaged houses and dismantling, 3) everyday waste fromrefugee life, 4) damaged infrastructures and 5) waste fromdamaged natural objects. However, disaster waste of GEJET

Waste management toward restoration
Prof Masanobu Ishikawa, Graduate School of
Economics, Kobe University

has the following four features: 1) Contamination byradioactivity, 2) Tsunami waste which contained sea
sediment, 3) Swept away waste in the sea, and 4)
Contamination by seawater. The estimation of the sea
sediment transferred by the tsunami is 33.6 to 48.4 million
tons in total which means that the volume of GEJET waste isalmost equal to the volume of annual urban waste generationin Japan (50 million tons). However, if you add urban waste
generation and industrial waste generation, it is about 450
million ton, which means GEJET produced one-tenth of thetotal volume of waste in a night. Compared to Hanshin/Awaji
Earthquake, which generated 14.3 million tons, GEJET
generated four times as much volume of waste.
The Ministry of the Environment (MOE) announced the roles tobe played by the state, prefectural and the municipal
governments. According to the MOE, the state government isto develop the master plan. The prefectural government is toprovide general coordination and the development of an action
plan. The municipality is to put the action plan in operation.
The fundamental policy of waste processing in GEJET waste

My presentation will be about the GEJET waste management

is on-site primary sorting. Secondary sorting is also necessary

problems, lessons we learned from them and some newat temporary stock yard to look for any recyclable item andproposals to help.

use rubbles as construction. Everything had to be in

Most disaster waste can be classiﬁed into ﬁve groups; 1)

accordance of the recycling law. In respect to the necessity

unwanted articles from damaged houses, 2) waste fromof the regional waste processing, some bigger joint instillation

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plant and joint collection plant were installed and the

Before we talk about changing the disaster law, we must

processing of waste was treated by categories.

understand that there are many factors contributing to the

In addition to all of the above, there is a new approach taken

establishment of laws for such disasters. For example,

from the Chinese policy for Sichuan Great Earthquake. It is thetsunami brings about a totally diﬀerent issue to consider fromextended associations of prefectures and cities in the Kansaithat of Hanshin/Awaji earthquake. We need to comprehendarea to support an assigned Tohoku prefecture. Although thethe historical changes of social needs for government s

support oﬀered is great, there are still the problems of

response and the occasional change of philosophy toward

extremely large quantity of waste (general and radioactive),disasters.

decontamination of soil and the urgent needs for restoration.

In regard to the law for emergency rescue and the very early

GEJET waste management taught us to anticipate thestage of emergency response of the government, there haveunanticipated damage , the importance of risk

been repeated improvements made to the basic disaster law

communication and ex-ante partnership. With these in mind, Iestablished in 1961, especially after the Hanshin/Awaji

would like to make two proposals. One is to organize aearthquake. These improvements have brought aboutstakeholder dialog and civic panel for management ofrelatively good achievements such as horizontal assistanceradioactive waste and the other is to develop a triangle

by other local government, concentration of commands to thepartnership between cities for mutual support in case of

cabinet, encouragement of volunteer and other citizens

emergency. A three-city bound partnership with people moving

initiatives, broader initiative of Self-Defense Force, andaround to learn how the city is organized and what to do in

National government acted quickly to assure full budgetarycase of emergency.

support.
In regard to the assistance to disaster victims, the 1947 lawfor disaster assistance constitutes the legal basis, which has
been developed and improved especially after Hanshin/Awaji
earthquake for monetary aids to victims who lost housing.

"A Process of Improvement of Law and

However, there is a great shortage of assistance, particularly

Institution in Disaster Management:

for those who lost the bases of livelihood. This is because theLessons from East Japan"

current law is set up to only help those who lost the minimum

Prof Yuka Kaneko, Graduate School of International

basis of living and prohibits aid to private properties.

Cooperation Studies, Kobe University

In the reconstruction phase, both prefectural and municipality
governments have limitations on the expenditure andinstitutional constraint because of the half-ﬁnisheddecentralization and the lack of basic law on post-disasterreconstruction. They are unable to make ﬁscal reconstruction
planning in fear of the last moment budgetary cut by thenational government.
The local government has three major choices ofreconstruction plan; 1) the relocating to high grounds, 2)
strengthening of lower grounds and 3) strengthening ofindividual building. The national government may be favoring
the last one, possibly because it is the lowest cost of thethree, in their campaign for the new philosophy of disastermitigation. As illustrated above, local government oﬃcials are
frustrated to be sandwiched between the national government
and the call for help from disaster victims. It is clear that
there is an urgent need for a fundamental change in the local

The purpose of my presentation is to understand the needs

autonomies.

for and observing the process of legal changes toward better

The example of Yamada Town in Iwate Prefecture shows adisaster response. The method used for research was throughchance of direct democracy of local government in producing

ﬁeld work and interview with the victims in one of the disastera positive result for the reconstruction planning. Althoughareas, Iwate Prefecture.

reconstruction is still only half ﬁnished, this challenge13

ultimately would achieve not just a reconstruction of hard

actual practice and it is an outcome through joint action with

infrastructure but also a construction of a totally new social

the aﬀected persons. We must keep our attention on

institutional infrastructure. Only then will they be able tosupporting the disaster victims personal level of diﬃculty byrealize the real local autonomy based on the individual uniquelistening sincerely to their stories of what they experienced

kind of democracy.

and/or still continue to experience. From this point of view, we
decided to provide a predictably-eﬀective practice of ashiyu ,which means foot-bath or the soaking of feet in warm water.
It will relax both parties and is a good way to create naturalconversation.
The support of psychological ﬁrst aid means being beside theperson and the warmth of another person is the ﬁrst aid forCollaboration for generating Hopemental care. This is regarded as the best form of support inProf Masayoshi Morioka, Graduate School of Humanthe case of emergency. According to personal documentation,

Development and Environment, Kobe University

people s emotion seemed to seriously swing between thenegative and the positive for a few months after the disaster.
However, after three months had passed, their voices seemed
to withdraw within themselves. This is the moment thatmental care becomes necessary. Other documentation also
shows the importance of the natural power for self-recovery
and inter-relationship.
Psychosocial care is also necessary for supporters
themselves. Sharing experience is very important to maintaina healthy mental state, therefore volunteers are given achance to share and reﬂect on their experience in meetings
with other volunteers after each activity.
The third elements for successful care are cultures and local
factors. Mental and psychosocial care is provided within thecultural life setting. Hence, the person and community cannot
be divided and we make it a point to care for individualism withhis or her community. We also need to recognize thecreative healing power of culture. Many collaborative

The importance and application of the multiple forms ofapproaches to psychosocial support are ongoing, in a form of

psychological support are explained in this presentation bycreating tanka and haiku, which are short forms of Japanese

introducing some cases of IASC（Inter-Agency Standing

poetry. Taking action and sharing with group have importantCommittee）
in WHO Guidelines.

meaning for psychosocial care.

There are three elements to achieve multiple forms of

Our hope is generated from the action of personal agency andpsychological support. The ﬁrst is centered on the living

the root of our hope is human connection. We have toperson, psychosocial support has to be oriented toward

reconstruct our society in terms of person centeredness andrecovering their sense of agency. Therefore having company

we can transform the model of psychosocial support from an

is always an essential element for recovery. Secondly, a

individual pathology model to a collaborative, connecting andsystem of mutual aid is necessary for supporters to sharecommunity model.

their experiences. Thirdly, indigenous cultural resources areimportant for healing and we look for ways to care for people
within their local community.
Professional psychologist worked quickly to provide organizedsocial support in the disaster area. However, there is
uncertainty about how we can be sure to establish important
links with aﬀected people when we leave the disaster area.
Mental care is especially contingent on multiple layers of

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Parthquake. However, this was not suﬃcient because of theserious blanks. The one week blank and one month blank .

"Community recovery of Tohoku disasterThe one week blank was the blank of the thing such as

hit area and recovery supports frommedicine and water, satellite and mobile phones which areoutside"necessary to life. The one month blank was the blank ofProf Yoshiteru Murosaki, Kwansei Gakuin University

volunteers which was brought on by the lack of information,
since telephone line was not usable and the lack of gasoline
made it impossible to travel by cars. The blank of volunteers
was also caused by rumors that the disaster area was still
dangerous or victims did not desire volunteers. Thirdly, I will
brieﬂy explain the recovery process. There are three stages ofcommunity recovery; the ﬁrst is quick recovery, or the stageof the refuge; next is the short-term recovery, or the stage ofthe temporary housing; and the third is long-term recovery, or
the stage of the permanent residence. Six months havepassed and 100,000 households are now living in temporary
houses. However, many people are still staying at sheltersand others in their damaged houses where hazardous sludge
still remains. The reconstruction plan for the permanent
residence is to build housings on the high land while ﬁshing orother work areas remain by the coast. The plan is to build alarge supermarket, hospital and other facilities in between the

I would like to talk about the current stage and problems of
the recovery in the Tohoku disaster areas. Firstly, I will talkabout the characteristics of the damage from the viewpoint of
the recovery. It can be explained from two aspects: one is tocapture the side of destruction and the other is to capture
from the side of loss. Regarding destruction, I will classify it
into Wide and Compound . Wide indicates the area
aﬀected by GEJET, which is ten times that of the
Hanshin/Awaji Earthquake in 1995. The area aﬀected by
GEJET is too wide and too many shelters for volunteers to
help out at. Compound means various disasters occurred
close to the same time like a chain reaction. As a result,
response to the nuclear disaster neglected the response to
the tsunami disaster. In terms of the characteristics of thetwo. I am against this plan for it will destroy the sense ofcommunity. I believe houses should be located near the work
place. Finally, I would like to close my presentation with thefollowing eight principles for recovery: 1) Solve social
distortion such as problems regarding the aged society andmedical depopulation; 2) Solve problems comprehensively, do
not consider only safety but also convenience and comfort; 3)
The recovery plan should include each individual s hope anddreams; 4) Support should ultimately encourage
independence; 5) Aim for environmental symbiosis withnature; 6) Value the memory of the area s history andtraditional culture; 7) Emphasize industrial reproduction andcommunity business; 8) Continuation of the community bystaying connected.

loss, problems are summarized into the following two points;
Bankruptcy and Function paralysis . Victims lost not only
buildings and property, but also their job and the land where
they lived because of radioactivity and subsidence.
Furthermore, the local government was paralyzed as well formany oﬃcials also died and the support from the state
government was insuﬃcient. Secondary, the support fromoutside should be mentioned. There are two aspects forneeds in this disaster. First is the need for relief and second
is the matching of need and supply. After the GEJET occurred,
the largest support in the history was carried out fromoutside. Almost ten times that of the Hanshin/Awaji

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