Disaster responseDrawing disaster response lessons by comparing quake responses

Following the devastating 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake which hit the Tohoku region of Japan, many local and provincial governments rushed to aid the people in the area with personnel and materials, providing important relief in a time of crisis. At a recent symposium, some were comparing the response to the 2011 disaster to the response to the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995 in order to draw lessons and offer guidelines in effective crisis management.

As The Japan Times reports, the symposium, held ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the 1995 disaster, included government officials and representatives of non-profit organizations from different regions and cities. Speakers discussed the planning challenges involved, and the turning of the city of Kobe into the premier center for disaster response-related information and infrastructure in Japan.

“The Hanshin quake produced heavy damage in a relatively concentrated are in and around Kobe, while the damage in Tohoku was spread out over a 500-km-long are from north to south,” said Hyogo governor Toshizo Ido of the ways in which the Hanshin quake provided a blueprint for responses to later disasters, but was still defined by its small impact area.

Because of this, the differences between the two events also revealed some challenges that were not considered prior.

“In addition, while aging city streets were hit hard in the 1995 quake, in Tohuku, many harbor areas were wiped out by the tsunami, destroying farmlands and fishing harbors, the economic base of local economies,” Ido said, spotlighting a major difference that forced provincial planners to think differently from the prior expectations and regulations.

Also, prior to the Hanshin event, there was intensive criticism or the government and how bureaucratic elements delayed the arrival of more official rescue efforts not only from within the country, but elsewhere as well.

“When the Tohoku quake hit…leaders met and drew up a plan for prefecture-to-prefecture assistance,” he said, of one of the primary lessons learned from 1995.

“By pairing up Kansai prefectures with Tohoku prefectures, we were able to create a degree of continuity of assistance and clearer lines of responsibility,” he added.

Ido and Iwate governor Takuya Tasso also stressed the continued importance of these quick strategies effectively to deal with evacuations and emergency infrastructures, such as temporary housing projects and rebuilding efforts.

More importantly, the partcipants in the symposium hoped to stress that if Japan is to withstand future quakes and other disasters, the peoples of the country’s many provinces would need to continue to work together and see the importance of aid.

“It’s important that the connections between the people of Iwate, Tohoku and Hyogo continue to develop, because our experiences with a natural disaster can help each other,” said Migiwa Ojima, a Kansai University student who spoke at the event. Ojima lost her father to the 1995 quake and has since volunteered within Japan and beyond to help others.

The Union of Kansai Government has signed agreements among nine different prefectures to assist one another in the event of a future disaster.