responding to japan’s - harvard university · responding to japan’s 3/11 earthquake, tsunami,...

The Tohoku Disaster: Responding to Japan’s

3/11 Earthquake, Tsunami, and Nuclear

Accident

Arnold M. Howitt, Ph.D.

Executive Director, The Roy and Lila Ash Center for

Democratic Governance and Innovation and

Faculty Co-Director, Program on Crisis Leadership

A Program of the

Taubman Center for State and Local Government

and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and

Innovation

This presentation is a work-in-progress, reporting on an on-going assessment of

documentary information and field interviews conducted last summer.

Great thanks and significant credit are

due to my project collaborators:

Prof. Herman B. “Dutch” Leonard, HKS and HBS

Ms. Hiromi Akiyama, George Mason University

Mr. David Giles, HKS

Prof. Shoji Tsuchida, Kansai University

Mr. Yohei Oka, Harvard College

Presentation Outline

• The Great East Japan Earthquake as an example of “landscape-scale” disasters

• Japan’s disaster management system • Relief to earthquake and tsunami victims • Response to the nuclear accident • Enhancing Japan’s emergency system • Q/A and discussion

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Framing Argument • Japan's experience with the Tohoku disaster

reinforces the proposition that major disasters are fundamentally decentralized phenomena.

• That means that trying to centralize disaster response to improve its effectiveness is likely to fail.

• More appropriately, two questions need to be faced:

• How do we make a necessarily decentralized response system work better -- i.e., to foster intelligent, decentralized adaptation?

• What is the role of the center in such a system?

Japan’s Disaster as an Exemplar of “Landscape-Scale” Disasters

Catastrophes that severely affect large geographic areas in many inter-locking societal dimensions – including life

safety, community, economy, environment, politics, governance, and culture

Increasing Disaster Danger

• In the 21st century, landscape-scale disasters are becoming more frequent and a greater threat to humanity. – Larger, more concentrated populations are located in

areas of substantial exposure to risk – Increasingly complex and interconnected human

systems are highly vulnerable to disruption – Technology vulnerability magnifies the danger of

natural disasters – Climate change threatens to increase the number of

natural disasters – and intensify their impact

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved. 6

Recent Examples of Landscape-Scale Disasters

• The Great East Japan Earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident (2011)

• BP fire and oil spill in the US (2010) • Pakistan floods (2010) • Haiti’s Earthquake (2010) • South China blizzards (2008) • China’s Wenchuan earthquake (2008) • Hurricane Katrina in the US (2005) • Indian Ocean tsunami (2004)

Copyright © 2012 by Arnold M. Howitt and Herman B. Dutch Leonard. All rights reserved.

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The Great East Japan Earthquake –

March 11, 2011

Source: The Economist, March 11, 2011

Source: Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) From Jun KURIHARA, Senior Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Presentation at Harvard Kennedy School, March 22, 2011.

Mar. 10 6:24 off Sanriku Coast 6.6


15:06 off Sanriku Coast 7.0

15:15 off Ibaragi Coast 7.4


16:15 off Fukushima Coast 6.8




20:37 off Iwate Coast 6.4

Mar. 12 0:13 off Ibaragi Coast 6.6

3:59 Niigata-Chuetsu 6.6


4:47 off Akita Coast 6.4




23:43 off Iwate Coast 6.1

Mar. 13 7:13 off Fukushima Coast 6.0

8:25 off Miyagi Coast 6.2

8:25 off Miyagi Coast 6.2



Mar. 14 14:02 off Ibaragi Coast 6.2


Mar. 15 18:50 off Fukushima Coast 6.3

22:31 Eastern Shizuoka 6.0


12:52 off East Cost of Chiba 6.0

Earthquakes from March 10-16, 2011 Number of Quakes: M≥7: 4; 7>M≥6: 43

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The Tsunami Hits 650 km of Coastline

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/mar/14/japan-tsunami-amateur-footage-video











Source: Kiyoshi MURAKAMI

Rikuzentakata City, Iwate Prefecture

Takata Matsubara (Pinetree Beach)



The Tsunami Approaches Rikuzentakata


Rikuzentakata Before the Earthquake and Tsunami

Rikuzentakata AFTER

Only one pine tree among 70,000 survived


Photos: Arn Howitt

The Municipal Gymnasium

in Rikuzentakata A Failed Tsunami Shelter

The Nuclear Accident at Fukushima Daiichi

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Impacts

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Great East Japan Earthquake/Tsunami

Damage along 650 km of coastline

Casualties:

Dead and missing 20,348

Injured 6,109

Building Damage (8/8/12)

Total collapse 129,316

Half collapse 263,845

Partial damage 725,760

Evacuees (maximum on 3/14/11) 470,000

Economic Damage ~US$210.0 billion

IBRD/World Bank (2012) The Great East Japan Earthquake: Learning from Megadisasters: Knowledge Notes,

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/drm_exsum_english.pdf;

WHO Collaborating Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters), Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2011: http://cred.be/sites/default/files/2012.07.05.ADSR_2011.pdf

http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/drm_exsum_english.pdf





http://cred.be/sites/default/files/2012.07.05.ADSR_2011.pdf

Japan’s Disaster Management System

Disaster Management Before the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995

• Responsibility for disaster planning and response rested primarily with local governments, which had the main body of response personnel – firefighters – and substantial practical influence over the police.

• Prefectures were supposed to plan for, support, and coordinate regional events; but many did little in advance, and most had few personnel to dispatch in response to dire happenings.

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Shun”ichi Furukawa, “An Institutional Framework for Japanese Crisis Manage-ment,” and Akira Nakamura, “The Need and Development of Crisis Management in Japan’s Public Administration: Lessons from the Kobe Earthquake,” both in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (March 2000).

Disaster Management Before the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 (2)

• National ministries were “stove-piped” and resisted cooperation.

• There was a national ministerial disaster council but no ongoing coordinating institution except what was organized ad hoc to deal with a specific event.

• The prime minister could direct the Self-Defense Force to aid disaster-struck areas, but local governments had to formally request assistance and then pay the costs of maintaining this force in the field – a strong disincentive for requesting aid.

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Shun”ichi Furukawa, “An Institutional Framework for Japanese Crisis Manage-ment,” and Akira Nakamura, “The Need and Development of Crisis Management in Japan’s Public Administration: Lessons from the Kobe Earthquake,” both in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (March 2000).

Post-Disaster Reform in 1995

• Slow and inadequate response following the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake led to widespread criticism of the national government

Shun”ichi Furukawa, “An Institutional Framework for Japanese Crisis Manage-ment,” and Akira Nakamura, “The Need and Development of Crisis Management in Japan’s Public Administration: Lessons from the Kobe Earthquake,” both in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (March 2000); and Toshiyuki Shikata, “The New Cabinet Crisis Management Center and the Leadership of the Prime Minister,“ Asia-Pacific (Review Vol. 9, No.2, 2002).

Post-Disaster Reform in 1995 (2) • Post-disaster reform legislation provided for:

– Improved information gathering on post-disaster conditions – Provision for speedy briefing of the prime minister – Infrastructure for information sharing among ministries – Convening of emergency meetings of key officials in PM’s

office – Establishment of position of Deputy Chief Cabinet

Secretary for Crisis Management, with a small staff in the Cabinet Secretariat

– Strengthening of planning requirements for sub-national governments

– Provision for the Self-Defense Force to perform relief work • The general thrust: centralization of response

Shun”ichi Furukawa, “An Institutional Framework for Japanese Crisis Manage-ment,” and Akira Nakamura, “The Need and Development of Crisis Management in Japan’s Public Administration: Lessons from the Kobe Earthquake,” both in Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (March 2000); and Toshiyuki Shikata, “The New Cabinet Crisis Management Center and the Leadership of the Prime Minister,“ Asia-Pacific (Review Vol. 9, No.2, 2002).

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