g. Promoting the Countermeasures against Sediment-related Disasters Based on the Sediment Disaster Prevention Act

(a) Promoting the Sediment Disaster Prevention Measures through Designation of Sediment-related Disaster hazard Areas

In accordance with the “Sediment Disasters Prevention Act”, areas vulnerable to sediment-related disasters that cause harm to residents are designated as sediment-related disaster hazard areas, warning and evacuation systems will be developed. Also, areas vulnerable to sediment-related disasters that cause damage to architectural structures and serious harm to residents are designated as special sediment-related disaster hazard areas, and non-structure measures are taken to restrict certain development activities and restrict on building structures. Also, guidelines and case studies are released for the development of warning and evacuation systems as well as the creation of hazard maps, further the development of warning and evacuation systems as well as the creation of hazard maps against sediment-related disasters are being promoted in the municipalities.

Houses near cliffs vulnerable to slope failures are

prompted to relocate using the program for relocating at risk housing located near cliffs. In FY2014, this program decreased risky houses by 17 and new 7 houses were built to replace risky houses.

(b) Amendment of the Sediment Disasters Prevention Act

Sediment-related disasters occurred in Hiroshima City in August 2014 due to heavy rain clarified the problem with the evacuation systems related to sediment-related disasters, that is, there were many areas which had not been designated as sediment-related disaster hazard areas or finished with baseline survey and the residents were not well-informed of the risk of sediment-related disasters.

To cope with such problems, the “Sediment Disasters Prevention Act” was partially amended and came into effect in January, 2015.

The amended Act forces prefectures to disclose baseline survey results, forces the governors of prefectures to deliver Sediment Disaster Alert to the mayors of municipalities and disseminate the information to ordinary people, and forces the municipal governments with sediment-related disaster hazard areas to take actual actions according to the description items in the regional disaster prevention plan.

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## Amendment of “Sediment Disaster Prevention Act”

Early on August 20, 2014 morning, Hiroshima City suffered concentrated localized rainfall, and debris flows and slope failures occurred in Asakita-ward and Asaminami-ward resulting in tremendous damages (74 deaths) due to sediment-related disasters.

This sediment-related disasters revealed the problems such as insufficient systems for evacuating from dangerous areas, for example, (1) the residents are not properly informed of the risk of sediment-related disaster, (2) evacuation warnings and orders were not given in advance, and (3) evacuation shelters and routes are in dangerous areas. To cope with these problems, the bill to revise the “Sediment Disaster Prevention Act” was submitted at the 187th Diet session (extraordinary Diet session) and the bill was enacted in November 2014, coming into effect in January 2015.

[Outline of Revision]