Japan has a lot to offer in disaster survival

Japan has a lot to offer in disaster survival

Katsuyuki Abe, The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

Immediately after a major earthquake struck off Indonesia's
Flores Island in 1992, I went to the region to survey the damage.
Here are my thoughts on how Japan can help other nations with
disaster preparedness.

While experts may be able to quickly determine the scale of a
temblor and send out tsunami warnings, that information is
useless if there is no way to convey it immediately to threatened
communities.

Determining a quake's magnitude and epicenter is vital to
tsunami forecast. However, some nations do not have the
capability to make tsunami forecasts. That applies even to those
with monitoring networks in place to gather quake data.

Japan's tsunami forecasting capability is without peer in the
world. We are also part of a pan-Pacific monitoring network.
Thus, Japan is in a position to contribute, technologically and
in other ways, to the creation of a similar network in the Indian
Ocean basin and to tsunami warning systems in individual nations.

Japan has a fine track record of training engineers from other
countries. However, it is also vital to ensure that these
trainees are able to make effective use at home of what they
learned in Japan, and that the systems built in their countries
function properly.

Providing every household with a transistor radio is one way
to alert people of an impending disaster. The problem is that not
everyone in poorer regions can to afford to buy batteries.

An alternative may be a public address system, similar to ones
set up in each local community in Japan that broadcast warning
sirens and announcements. But this would be contingent on a
stable power supply. In any event, we must find a realistic and
inexpensive solution.

In remote regions, for instance, a system could be set up to
alert each local administrative office, and then relay that
warning from community to community by an audible signal such as
the clanging of bells. There is much to be learned from Japanese
communities that have perfected systems so that all residents are
warned.

For areas close to the epicenter of an earthquake, the arrival
of the first tsunami could be so swift as to render any warning
system useless. But since a nearby earthquake would be felt by
the populace, it is vital to educate the public thoroughly in the
importance of fleeing to higher ground the moment they feel a
jolt.

In the immediate aftermath of a catastrophe, people appreciate
the enormity of what happened. But since such disasters do not
occur frequently, the lessons are forgotten over time.

This is why disaster-preparedness education is necessary. In
the case of the Dec. 26 tsunami, for instance, I would suggest
that the heights to which the tsunami flood waters rose be
clearly marked for posterity. It would also be worthwhile for
community members to draw up their own hazard maps, in addition
to similar efforts by local governments.

Disaster education should start early, preferably at primary
school level. There is a movement now in Japan to use puppets and
picture boards to tell children stories like the one about a
villager who was on a hill when he saw the sea suddenly recede.
Anticipating a tsunami, he set fire to bundles of newly cut rice
plants to warn his people and thus saved everyone.

But being taught these things in not sufficient. People need
to undergo repeated drills. All sorts of drills have been devised
in Japan, and new ideas are being generated constantly to
encourage greater public participation.

As for infrastructure, it is cheaper to install breakwater
blocks than to build seawalls, and they are just as effective.
Japan has ample experience in placing these blocks to stop
coastlines eroding.

Also, nonprofit groups that specialize in desert greening
projects could help with planting tide-water control forests,
which dissipate a tsunami's force.

Both infrastructure and education are necessary when thinking
about how to prepare for earthquakes and tsunami. Japan, with its
experience and know-how, has much to offer the world.

The author is a professor at the University of Tokyo's
Earthquake Research Institute.