tsunami and earthquake report and analysis (march 25 2011)
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TSUNAMI, EARTHQUAKE INSPECTION REPORT and analysis 2011, 3.25
By Koko Kato
1
Tohoku, East Kanto Earthquake, Tsunami Nuclear Reactor damage report
I. Total Damage Estimate
II. On site inspection report(Kamaishi)
III. Recommendation Note
I.1 Total Damage Estimate report on March 25rd. 2012
Damage and casualties Tohoku 6 prefecture ( Aomori, Akita, Iwate,
Yamagata Miyagi, Fukushima) Earthquake of Magnitude 9 and
Tsunami of higher than 10 m and highest 16 m hit Tohoku region
particulary Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima plus North of Kanto include
Tochigi and Ibaragi on 11th. of March.
I.2 Mostly damaged area
Most of the damage are concentrated in 3 prefecture out of 8 prefectures
particularly on Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima.
However, nature of casualties are diversified depending on the region.
Missing and death number based on NHK news on 2011/03/25
Prefecture Death Missing Total
Casualties
% Coast
towns
Coastal
population
Pref.
population
Coast
line
Iwate 3025 4869 7894 2.44 12 309,466 1,330,530 710km
Miyagi 6097 6671 12768 0.74 15 1,708,963
2,347,975 842km
Fukushima 839 5997 6836 0.13 10 529,867
2,028,752 167km
Total casualties are over 27,498 including death(9961) and missing
(17537) in addition, there are more or less of 250,000 people who are
now spending shelter life according to statistics reported National Police on
March 24th . 2011 . Total number of casualties will be expected to raise
despite the desperate search and rescue operation by military, police and
firemen as time goes by. Tohoku temperature is below zero in the night and
it is sometimes snowy even in March. We cannot collect nor identify the
bodies on the coast line of Sanriku coast spread over 3 prefectures in Iwate,
TSUNAMI, EARTHQUAKE INSPECTION REPORT and analysis 2011, 3.25
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Miyagi and Fukushima in Tohoku facing Pacific Ocean. Many towns were
lost in 10 minutes in the three consecutive tsunami wave one of the highest
was 16 m which took away thousands of lives just in 10 minutes and left
only sand and mad and garbages to the town . Those are only the figures
which has been reported to the police and particularly missing numbers of
Miyagi prefecture will increase as time goes by. Ishinomaki city and
Megawa city located in OJIKA peninsula are particulary damaged by
Tsunami wave and Ishinomaki is very difficult to have transportation access
therefore the number of casualties is not known.
Damage are beyond the scale and whole coastal villages in Sanriku coast of
35,236km length in TOHOKU except for kamaishi are fishery and sea food
towns.
Currently 37 communities on the coast, some of them are still isolated from
the rest of the world with no Telephone communication, no electricity, no
water and no gas, no petro for days. One city in Iwate was also gone with
registration of residence. Main streets, backroad, whole towns are covered by
with sands and mad after Tsunami are gone.
One of the issue is petro. Oil terminal in TOHOKU are located by the coast
and lost in Tsunami with hundreds of tank rollies. Gasoline disappeared
from petro station in east of Japan in one day due to TOHOKU crisis now
recovered to be normal. We confirmed oil reserve in the underground was
safe from Tsunami. However, amazing progress we see from Port recovery
and Road recovery by the 24 hours full reconstruction efforts of engineers
and workers in MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrustructure, Transport and
Tourism).
Fukushima is the anther area which we cannot confirm the exact casualties
due to nuclear reactor issues. Police has not entered in the vicinity of 20 km.
of Nuclear reactor for search operation. Therefore we cannot identify the
exact number of tall.
What we found in Kamaishi was worth the reporting. So I would like to
send you this report and share the news with you. There were the kilos of
rubbles, destroyed and demolished building, piece of houses and abandoned
car on the street in the black sand with smells of sea fish and mad. After 6
TSUNAMI, EARTHQUAKE INSPECTION REPORT and analysis 2011, 3.25
By Koko Kato
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days, city started to resume its functions slowly but their first priority is
rescue operation and as rescue operations move on, we find the scale of
casualties bigger and bigger.
You will not imagine train cars, houses, towns disappeared in 10 minutes.
Weather is not in favor of survivors of the victims of Tsunami. It is snowy in
Iwate and water is freezingly cold. Recovery of 2 survivors after 9 days were
miracle but we do not give up the hope. After tsunami, construction
demand will increase and government plan to spend 10 trillion yen to Tohoku.
Building houses takes time and people has to sustain their lives in very hard
condition. Temporary Housing development is urgent for people staying
in shelter house but we need their psychological support in addition to
physical support. Lives of family, relatives and friends lost in Tsunami will
never come back. It will take years to find the missing people and find the
identification of bodies temporarily buried. We are all shocked without any
words to console bereaved family who lost everything. They also need time
to digest their sadness and sorrow but very calm because all the neighbors
share the same hardship.
In addition, Tsunami damage weaken economic base of Tohoku by losing
fishery and farming population. Commercial and some manufacturing
basis are heavily damaged by Tsunami wave. Forestry and public service
will be recovered and may have construction demand in the future but they
will not be sufficient enough to support local economy, Tokyo has to support
TOHOKU area in the generations to come. Despite the pessimism in Tokyo
about TOHOKU’s future, I found many survivors in Tohoku Tsunami
incredible optimism, they are much much stronger than I expected.
Nature of the damage differs depending on the three prefecture.
Among three prefectures, Fukushima has the deepest issues due to
nuclear reactor problems caused by Tsunami. Farmers away from nuclear
reactor area will not be able to sell the products for many years due to the
fear of contamination of consumers. According to today’s news
approximately 30,000 population from FUKUSHIMA are forced to evacuate
to Saitama prefecture or to relative’ house in Tokyo or adjacent provinces
vicinity to Fukushima. I encountered the busses from Futaba city where
nuclear reactors are located in service station of TOHOKU. They need
TSUNAMI, EARTHQUAKE INSPECTION REPORT and analysis 2011, 3.25
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psychological care since they have trauma from nuclear reactor in addition
to their loss of their houses in Tsunami.
.
II. 1. Kamaishi Inspection
Date: March 18th
Company: Nittetsu Mining Co. OB (ex president Mr. Hamabe)
Hamayurikai( Mr. Onozaki) Care Japan (Ms. Kaiharazuka) Cordinator
Koko Kato,
Relief Aid: 6 ton Cargo (List of items in the separate page)
Purpose: Visiting
Sponsor: Nippon Steel mining, Hamayuri-kai, Kyushu Yamaguchi modern
industrialization for WH organization、 Care Japan, Care Okayama, Care
Kumamoto, Morinaga confectionary company, Daio seishi, Yoko Abe,
Mutsuko Kato, Kazuhiko Morinaga, Ryoji Nagata, Tatsuo Aso, Anrakuji,
Iwate prefecture, many villages just disappeared in 10 minutes in Tsunami
more than any other area that is why we see 5018 people missing and still
under the search. According to NHK news, among all 12 coastal towns,
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Rikuzentakada city was the worst hit area with loss estimated to 1000 and
police cannot grasp the accurate figure now bassed on NHK news this
evening. Generally speaking, the mad and sand cover the whole coasts, it is
very hard to recover the body and cannot identify the countless bodies on the
beach therefore, those bodies they found are temporary buried for future
identification work instead of cremating. No electricity, no water and many
city hall and government people are also victims of tsunami tidal wave but
instead of going to find their own family, they dedicated their lives to rescue
school children, conducting search operation, helping citizens from their
shelter house. But when I visit Kamaishi on 18th. of March after 7 days of
Tsunami for 13 hours of drive from TOKYO, they are strong and never lose
the hope for future. Kamaishi is different from neighboring fishery towns.
It is the steel mill town and the first town where Japanese iron and steel
industry started however due to the production shift of Nippon steel,
population of 73000 in 1970 was dropped to the half (39578) in 2010.
Industrial base is mainly iron and steel and production of heavy industry but
also fishing, sea food processing , forestry, and mining. They have 458
death and 470 people still missing on 18th report at city hall. They have
the wharf high as 10 m but Tsunami easily pass this wharf and whole town
was swollen and sand wave came up to the station.
Central area, commercial area are totally gone and major residential area
located to the south disappeared in 10 minutes. 10,000 people, out of 39000
population are living in shelters are from City central and southern
residential people and number of people going to shelter are increasing every
single day. People does not want to leave the houses even though it is just
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a bare shelters without electricity or hot water in the below zero temperature.
They have to move to facility for the safety.
Production facilities of Nippon steel in Kamaishi is also affected by Tunami
but prepare to resume the production in the hardship by waiting for recovery
of electricity and wharf and port facility. They are kindly providing their
facility for unidentified body’s Charnel house. Kamaishi is lucky compared
to neighboring fishery towns since Mountain side are still less damaged
including Kamaishi mining and Hashino furnace area, WH candidate area
in the forest, while neighbor fishery town of Kamaishi are totally gone and
more than half the population including city hall disappeared in the wave of
Tsunami. Just for your information, IWATE’s 98% of fishery business are
depending on those coastal towns and their damage and costs are the second
priority to discovery of the missing people. But we expect the figure to be
very very high.
Kamaishi has surprised me all the time. They do not give up the hope
and hold up with their strong spirit at the time of tragedy. I tried to reach
the mayors in every single communication method on 17th. but could not
reachable. So I have arranged 6 t truck, relief aids and foods with mining
company people to visit the towns. Port people, road construction people,
electricity repair worker, bulldozer, firefighters, civil servants are working
all night day and night non stop without having proper food and proper heat.
There were fishermen who want to go back to the ocean, company executive
who wants to resume business operation, restaurant owner camping to feed
others survivors talking about recovery of the Kamaishi, dreaming to achieve
rugby contest in 2016 in the rubbles on the coast. They are fighting so hard.
There is spirit of hope everywhere in the town.
1.City hall
All the city government officials either lost the family or house because
majority of them resides UNOSUGAI coastal residential area. They
are sacrificing themselves to work as a government responsible for relief
aid, search operation and recovery of body. (Following photo is vice
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By Koko Kato
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Mayor sasaki, who also lost his house.) Mr. Kikuchi, who accompanied
my visit are formerWH officer, whose house is lost and his wife was
found on the day of my arrival after 5 days of Tusnami but serving for
the missing people day and night rescuing school children from the
bridge. Many of their employees are very tired and worn out without
proper food, no electricity no water but survive and help others. It is
matter of time to resume water, electricity but in order to recover the
capacity of city government, it takes quite long time.
(Prefectural government is located in mountain and less damaged)
Missing information board ⇔ First priority to recover
1.Relief Aid distribution(Military and volunteer)
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Relief Aid: Boxes of relief aids are shipped to the town from all over the
world: Particularly from prefectural center to C plaza run by city
government but unfortunately those boxes of food stay in the city storage and
not be distributed to the each shelters promptly and efficiently due to the
shortage of gas and lack of manpower.
Note:
(ア) Distribution is not clear(Volunteer came to pick up the box)→
Quite ineffective and inefficient(It may be just lunch time…)from
what I see, no director is in the storage, but city representative is
doing reception,and one by one volunteer come over to pick up one
box whatever necessary in 15 minutes of my stay in distribution
center. ⇔ I am sure the situation has improved since then.
(イ) If there is 63 evacuation shelters with 9800 people, you need 10 to 13 cars
to move around, and distribute the goods in the morning, lunch and dinner.
In addition, we need staffing to transport fromKamaishi to other cities since
situation on the coastal towns surrounding Kamaishi is even worse.(We do
not NGO but Locals)
Private industry located vicinity of Tsunami hitted area have manpower and
more ability to deliver and distribute products such as Michinoku Coka
Cola bottlers and Nittetsu etc. on business basis.
(ウ) Also taxi is untapped sources. There is no gas in station but Taxi is not
using the same fuel and there is no shortage of taxi gas. It costly but can be
distributed.
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I visited my friend Ms. Iwasaki, restaurant owner in UMISUMAI town, outskirt
of Kamaishi, area are totally devastated and nothing remains. Her
restaurant was completely gone and you cannot recognize anything
except for shelter. Ms. Iwasaki was swept away in Tsunami wave
but survived and being rescued and stayed one night over in
mountain and going back to her Horaikan restaurant to see the
ramining shells of building. Then she started to camp with fire in
drum can, washing the rice from dirt and started to cook and cater
the food to 10 to 15 survivors in the area. I told her your daughter
was looking for you on her blog on net…. Then she said “ I cannot
contact her. But I am here. I won’t go anywhere. Kamaishi will
be my home. Kamaishi will come back, Iwate will come back and I
will be here and not going anywhere but to stay here all the time.
This is the town of iron. We won’t give up. In 2016, we have
rugby competition and triathelon competition. And we want to
make it”. Many of the mid aged ladies with her another daughter
are around fire and cooking fishes on barbaque. Most of the people
surrounding fire either lost their family or relative. This is
Kamaishi spirit.
Kamaishi is recovered from 2 big natural disasters Kamaishi will
be the first place to come back from Tsunami disaster. Government
should provide the economic assistance to the business who wants to
resume their operation.
Reason1.Industrial base is quite diversified not only fishery, farming but
also forestry, mining and manufacturing.
Reason 2. North side of Kamaishi, Kitagami, hanamaki, Tono there are no
damange. You can provide the support from inland.
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Reason 3. From the ocean, they can supply products and port people are
working days and night for the recovery.
Reason4 .Kamaishi can be the distribution hub of relief goods for the rest of
fishery towns on the coast. They know how to handle recovery from
natural disasters and recovery
Reason5 Tohoku Highway will be deregulated right away and
Ichinoseki-Kamaishi was the first to open.
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III . RECOMMENDATION to CARE or any other NGO
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I was determined to visit Kamaishi with the encouragement of former
Nippon steel corporation mining department president Mr. Hamabe
andMr. Onozaki, with the support of headquarter of Nittettsu Corp. Mr.
matsumoto and CARE Japan’s support.
Also, mayor Noda and many city officials are my friends so as Ms. Iwasaki.
So I was determined to accompany them, even offer to chauffer them to see
my old friends in Kamaishi with CARE special pass to the traveling aids.
After 13 hours drive to Kamaishi I lost my words. What I saw in Kamaishi
is beyond my imagination, there is no Commercial zone, no residential
zone from the station, to city center to south, all the city functions
destroyed except for mountain area. This scene continues all the coastal
towns in the area.
Our government have not known the this type of tragedy at this scale. Lack
of experience delay the decision but nobody should be blamed for their job
at this emergency. We cannot expect them to do perfect job in handling
this scale of disaster. We have to do what we can do. Although capacity
is quite limited for small volunteer or NGO, and lack of experience in
working without any infrastructure, those relief organization can be
catalyst of change by tieing up with local business communities.
Everybody did the best and tried the best at the time of emergency on site.
My recommendation to CARE which supported this visit was instead of
hiring new staffs or outsource to distribution companies which have
already had experience of distribution otherwise it is not going to work
efficiently nor effectively. . Because this is not the scale of NGO
independently working by themselves.
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CARE Japan
With my observation, Oversea relief organization such as Care Japan
have experienced in raising the fund but does not seem to have capacity
to organize relief operation in Japan. I am not sure whether they can
build the capacity in the future to meet the emergency needs in short
period of time but still room to consider in case they work with the local
initiative and community. Locals and MLIT knows what to do the best
with their experience in recovery of natural disaster. But oversea relief
organization can assist them in efficient way while building their own
capacity which has experienced in the developing nation.
In first place, travelling with CARE was not easy since they are not
familiar with road and area and their team are not familiar with relief
activity inside of Japan and I was convinced to see them better to be the
assistant to locals who know the local municipalites and community better
than anybody else. Therefore, with regard to Oversea aid operation to be
used effectively and most efficiently, CARE should develop the framework
in joint operation with local business community which will be the best way
to manage the support operation in Japan.
III.2 Fukushima Nuclear Reactor
In Service station near Fukushima, there are number of people who are
fleeding from the town and quite congested. Many of them just left town
without any banknote, nothing to carry and cannot go home to collect and
being forced to evacuate to Saitama or Tokyo. They are moving to shelter
in Saitama. I do not know how much longer this traumatic experience
remains in their mind. They are psychologically damaged and it takes
time to heal them. But, I am sure it is very very deep issue and they have
no home to go back. Fukushima needs more time than any other place and
we need to support.
Currently, electricity came to 1-4 nuclear reactor power control center and
Nuclear reactors are under full control again by brave activity of firemen and
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Self Defense Forces in the threat of nuclear radiation. Cooling off operation
of firefighters will bring the stability of nuclear reactor despite serious news
from media. I am not familiar with the impact or effect of nuclear reactor
on health of human body. I am sure it is hazardous. But so as flying on
the plane and having X ray in the hospital is. Therefore, I would reserve the
comment about the impact of invisible enemy may penetrate the body any
time and what I saw from the eyes of people evacuating from Futaba city in
the bus in below picture without carrying any asset, they have anxiety and
fear for future. And cloud in the sky was the scene of the scientific fiction
movie. I sincerely hope situation will calm down and will come down.
Driving back to Tokyo where life is more normal, also people are more
indifferent to those who are suffered in Tsunami nor nuclear reactor. It
looks like totally different world. But I feel this issues very strongly as our
own issue and would like to share their problems and support them.
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GNN
They provide one third of electricity in TOKYO business activity and lives of
TOKYO we have to appreciate how hard they are working to sacrifice their
lives for our wealthy lifestyle in Tokyo. We expect Japanese economy will
slow down due to shortage of the power temporarily. But at least we are
lucky to be able to live and survive in this tragedy.
As heavy industry support our lives as production and manufacturing in
Tohoku, we hope they resume operation soon and support the economic base
of our country. It is probably the most complex problem Japan has ever had.
Our country has been innovative in technology and stand up from the bottom
after the war and earthquake. We learn the lesson from nuclear disaster
triggered by TSUNAMI and I hope we can develop the first new technology
learn from the lesson to control nuclear reactors perfectly or develop
alternative energy source in the future.
Tsunami victims, Nuclear reactor victims, sudden death of families and
friends, missing people, for sure it will be a big and long trauma for our
people, probably never be healed for generations to come. It also hurt our
country’s economy due to serious damage of production system and takes
time for full recovery and resume the operation financially and both
TSUNAMI, EARTHQUAKE INSPECTION REPORT and analysis 2011, 3.25
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physically. Many companies are expected to go bankrupt as secondary
damage in addition to this unexpected and unprecedented tragedy since we
are heavily depending on the TOHOKU for supply of many products.
Shortage of Food distribution coming from TOHOKU area to TOKYO market
will increase the food price. Japanese fishery and sea food processing, and
farming are heavily damaged by losing the best fishery and sea food
processing area.
I am not sure how long it will take for full recovery from this terrible natural
disaster but I hope we will overcome this tragedy because we are all behind
TOHOKU people. Tohoku people are strong, patient and gutsy, they have
overcomed poverty and hardship all in their lives. Perseverance are their
special character which is something I admire all the time. I am sure they
will come back by their strong efforts and we always support their strong
community leadership and guts to challenge hardship . NEVER GIVE UP!
ankThank you very much for your support and all the
message I receive from the world. I am looking
forward to seeing you and welcoming you in Japan
before too long!!
Koko Kato
PS. Neil,
Hashino was fine and no damage at all. I will keep
TSUNAMI, EARTHQUAKE INSPECTION REPORT and analysis 2011, 3.25
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on supporting Kyushu Yamaguchi and Tohoku JV
for WH initiative with you, too. It won’t die in 10
minutes of Tsunami, earthquake and nuclear reactor
problem.
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