There are some researches on behavior remaining at home despite the risk of danger from earthquake-induced tsunamis. However, there are few researches on difference of the behavior considering habitant attributes such as their household characteristics, type of house, regional condition, etc. This study aims to clarify the characteristics of the evacuation behavior of habitants in the tsunami inundation hazardous areas using a large scale questionnaire survey.
The questionnaire was distributed to habitants living in the tsunami inundation hazardous area following the Nankai Trough massive earthquake based on damage estimations published by the national cabinet. The areas of focus include the following 13 cities from Kanagawa to Miyazaki Prefecture in Japan facing the Pacific Ocean: Kamakura City, Zushi City, Fujisawa City, Shizuoka City, Shimizu Ward in Shizuoka City, Nishi Ward and Minami Ward in Hamamatsu City, Iwata City, Tsu City, Matsuzaka City, Ise City, Wakayama City Kochi City and Miyazaki City. Given the broad location coverage of this study, the questionnaire survey was conducted through the internet.
The questionnaire comprises three parts: questions about respondent attributes, questions about respondent houses, and questions about respondent behaviors they will choose after a large earthquake occurred. Firstly, respondents answer their home address, gender, generations and whether or not they live with handicapped family members. Next, respondents answer the type of their house: detached house or apartment buildings, number of stories, and whether they own or rent. Finally, respondents choose their evacuation behavior after a huge earthquake by choosing one behavior from a set of choices provided for two specific scenarios: 1) earthquake occurs at noon, and 2) earthquake occurs late at night. The behavioral choices include: staying home, moving to a school, moving to another residential building nearby, moving to higher ground outdoors, and so on.
Within the 13 cities surveyed, there were a total of 1103 respondents. The responses were aggregated by attributes and analyzed. The analyses revealed that, after large earthquakes, people living in detached houses tend to stay home, while those living in apartments tend to evacuate; respondents who rent are more likely to evacuate than those who own their home; respondents living in high-rise apartments tend to stay, while those living in low-rise buildings tend to evacuate; and elderly people are more likely to stay home than younger people. In addition, people living with handicapped family or with children tend to evacuate. These results also demonstrated a difference of the evacuation behavior among the 13 cities in the danger of tsunami inundation.
