Black Wave
Black Wave

Author: Daniel P. Aldrich

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-07-10

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 022663843X

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Despite the devastation caused by the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 60-foot tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, some 96% of those living and working in the most disaster-stricken region of Tōhoku made it through. Smaller earthquakes and tsunamis have killed far more people in nearby China and India. What accounts for the exceptionally high survival rate? And why is it that some towns and cities in the Tōhoku region have built back more quickly than others? Black Wave illuminates two critical factors that had a direct influence on why survival rates varied so much across the Tōhoku region following the 3/11 disasters and why the rebuilding process has also not moved in lockstep across the region. Individuals and communities with stronger networks and better governance, Daniel P. Aldrich shows, had higher survival rates and accelerated recoveries. Less-connected communities with fewer such ties faced harder recovery processes and lower survival rates. Beyond the individual and neighborhood levels of survival and recovery, the rebuilding process has varied greatly, as some towns and cities have sought to work independently on rebuilding plans, ignoring recommendations from the national government and moving quickly to institute their own visions, while others have followed the guidelines offered by Tokyo-based bureaucrats for economic development and rebuilding.

Learning from Megadisasters
Learning from Megadisasters

Author: Federica Ranghieri

Publisher: World Bank Publications

Published: 2014-06-26

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1464801541

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While not all natural disasters can be avoided, their impact on a population can be mitigated through effective planning and preparedness. These are the lessons to be learned from Japan's own megadisaster: the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, the fi rst disaster ever recorded that included an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear power plant accident, a power supply failure, and a large-scale disruption of supply chains. It is a sad fact that poor communities are often hardest hit and take the longest to recover from disaster. Disaster risk management (DRM) should therefore be taken into account as a major development challenge, and countries must shift from a tradition of response to a culture of prevention and resilience. Learning from Megadisasters: Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake consolidates a set of 36 Knowledge Notes, research results of a joint study undertaken by the Government of Japan and the World Bank. These notes highlight key lessons learned in seven DRM thematic clusters—structural measures; nonstructural measures; emergency response; reconstruction planning; hazard and risk information and decision making; the economics of disaster risk, risk management, and risk fi nancing; and recovery and relocation. Aimed at sharing Japanese cutting-edge knowledge with practitioners and decision makers, this book provides valuable guidance to other disaster-prone countries for mainstreaming DRM in their development policies and weathering their own natural disasters.

Community Practices for Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan
Community Practices for Disaster Risk Reduction in Japan

Author: Rajib Shaw

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-08-23

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9784431561361

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This book presents key lessons from community-based risk-reduction practices in Japan, a country that is often hit by disasters and that also has shown strong resilience in coping with those disasters. Japan has a strong governance system for disaster risk reduction. However, the Kobe earthquake of 1995 showed the importance of community involvement in disaster response as well as recovery. With several examples from different parts of Japan, the book elaborates on the importance of community-based risk reduction and the innovations required for sustaining some of the community approaches. The book has 13 chapters and is divided into three parts: (1) Evolution of community-based risk reduction in Japan; (2) Community-based risk-reduction issues; and (3) Case studies. The primary target groups for this book are students and researchers in the fields of environment, disaster risk reduction, and climate change studies. The book provides them with a good idea of the current research trends in the field and furnishes basic knowledge about these vital topics. Another target group comprises practitioners and policy makers, who will be able to apply the knowledge collected here to policy and decision-making.

3.11
3.11

Author: Richard J. Samuels

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2013-04-15

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0801468027

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On March 11, 2011, Japan was struck by the shockwaves of a 9.0 magnitude undersea earthquake originating less than 50 miles off its eastern coastline. The most powerful earthquake to have hit Japan in recorded history, it produced a devastating tsunami with waves reaching heights of over 130 feet that in turn caused an unprecedented multireactor meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This triple catastrophe claimed almost 20,000 lives, destroyed whole towns, and will ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction.In 3.11, Richard Samuels offers the first broad scholarly assessment of the disaster's impact on Japan's government and society. The events of March 2011 occurred after two decades of social and economic malaise—as well as considerable political and administrative dysfunction at both the national and local levels—and resulted in national soul-searching. Political reformers saw in the tragedy cause for hope: an opportunity for Japan to remake itself. Samuels explores Japan's post-earthquake actions in three key sectors: national security, energy policy, and local governance. For some reformers, 3.11 was a warning for Japan to overhaul its priorities and political processes. For others, it was a once-in-a-millennium event; they cautioned that while national policy could be improved, dramatic changes would be counterproductive. Still others declared that the catastrophe demonstrated the need to return to an idealized past and rebuild what has been lost to modernity and globalization.Samuels chronicles the battles among these perspectives and analyzes various attempts to mobilize popular support by political entrepreneurs who repeatedly invoked three powerfully affective themes: leadership, community, and vulnerability. Assessing reformers’ successes and failures as they used the catastrophe to push their particular agendas—and by examining the earthquake and its aftermath alongside prior disasters in Japan, China, and the United States—Samuels outlines Japan’s rhetoric of crisis and shows how it has come to define post-3.11 politics and public policy.

Governance, Risk and Financial Impact of Mega Disasters
Governance, Risk and Financial Impact of Mega Disasters

Author: Akiko Kamesaka

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-23

Total Pages: 124

ISBN-13: 9811390053

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This book addresses researchers, practitioners, and policy makers interested in understanding the financial implications of mega-disaster risks as well as in seeking possible solutions with regard to governance, the allocation of financial risk, and resilience. The first part of this book takes the example of Japan and studies the impact of mega earthquakes on government finance, debt positions of private household and businesses, capital markets, and investor behavior by way of economic modeling as well as case studies from recent major disasters. In Japan, the probability of a mega earthquake hitting dense agglomerations is very high. Like other large-scale natural disasters, such events carry systemic risks, i.e., they can trigger disruptions endangering the stability of the social, economic, and political order. The second part looks at the experience of the Japanese government as a provider of disaster-risk finance and an active partner in international collaboration. It concludes with an analysis of the general characteristics of systemic risk and approaches to improve resilience.

Japan’s Disaster Governance
Japan’s Disaster Governance

Author: Itoko Suzuki

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-01-09

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1461461510

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Natural disasters are often multifaceted and cause severe damage. Disasters initiated locally can become national and even global crises. Today’s world urgently needs a new body of knowledge and techniques for the mitigation of and response to disaster. Central to such a body of knowledge are disaster preparedness, emergency and crisis management systems of government, of which capacity building is becoming an increasingly important element in public administration, management and governance. Today, disasters are to be managed by sound local, national, and global governance, through all the phases of preparedness, prevention, mitigation and then to relief, recovery and re-construction. During all these phases, government plays the most important role. This book provides a case of the disaster governance of Japan, by presenting information and analyses on what happened in the Magnitude 9 Great East Japan Earthquake that caused the huge tsunami and the INES Level 7 Fukushima nuclear power plants accidents on March 11, 2011. In examining this Japanese case study, this book illustrates the socio-economic damage of the stricken areas together with the overall picture of the disasters. It examines Japan’s capacity for disaster governance and it’s crisis management system in response to the most devastating disaster that the country has ever encountered since the end of WWII. It also offers preliminary findings learned from this experience in the Japan’s public administration and governance systems, challenged to be more accountable and transparent during the recovery and reconstruction efforts now in progress.

Coping with Disaster Risk Management in Northeast Asia
Coping with Disaster Risk Management in Northeast Asia

Author: Gregory Coutaz

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing

Published: 2018-10-31

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1787430944

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This book analyzes the diversity of national disaster risk governance across Northeast Asia by comparing the national disaster management plans implemented by the governments of China, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. It also provides an overview of the financial protection measures employed by these jurisdictions to insure against losses.

The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster
The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster

Author: School of Societal Safety Sciences

Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann

Published: 2017-10-26

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 0128129654

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The Fukushima and Tohoku Disaster: A Review of the Five-Year Reconstruction Efforts covers the outcome of the response, five years later, to the disasters associated with the Great East Japan earthquake on March 11, 2011. The 3.11 disaster, as it is referred to in Japan, was a complex accident, the likes of which humans had never faced before. This book evaluates the actions taken during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident, for which the Japanese government and people were not prepared. The book also provides recommendations for preparing and responding to disasters for those working and living in disaster-prone areas, making it a vital resource for disaster managers and government agencies. - Includes guidelines for governments, communities and businesses in areas where similar complex disasters are likely to occur - Provides information, propositions, suggestions and advice from the people that were involved in making suggestions to the Japanese government - Features case studies (both pre- and post-disaster) of three simultaneous disasters: the Great East Japan earthquake, the resulting tsunami, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster

Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan
Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan

Author: Jeff Kingston

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-03-12

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1136343474

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The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan plunged the country into a state of crisis. As the nation struggled to recover from a record breaking magnitude 9 earthquake and a tsunami that was as high as thirty-eight meters in some places, news trickled out that Fukushima had experienced meltdowns in three reactors. These tragic catastrophes claimed some 20,000 lives, initially displacing some 500,000 people and overwhelming Japan's formidable disaster preparedness. This book brings together the analysis and insights of a group of distinguished experts on Japan to examine what happened, how various institutions and actors responded and what lessons can be drawn from Japan’s disaster. The contributors, many of whom experienced the disaster first hand, assess the wide-ranging repercussions of this catastrophe and how it is already reshaping Japanese culture, politics, energy policy, and urban planning.

Natural Disaster Management in the Asia-Pacific
Natural Disaster Management in the Asia-Pacific

Author: Caroline Brassard

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-11-18

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 4431551573

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The Asia-Pacific region is one of the most vulnerable to a variety of natural and manmade hazards. This edited book productively brings together scholars and senior public officials having direct experience in dealing with or researching on recent major natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific. The chapters focus on disaster preparedness and management, including pre-event planning and mitigation, crisis leadership and emergency response, and disaster recovery. Specific events discussed in this book include a broad spectrum of disasters such as tropical storms and typhoons in the Philippines; earthquakes in China; tsunamis in Indonesia, Japan, and Maldives; and bushfires in Australia. The book aims to generate discussions about improved risk reduction strategies throughout the region. It seeks to provide a comparative perspective across countries to draw lessons from three perspectives: public policy, humanitarian systems, and community engagement.