Research on the Evacuation Activities of Elderly and the Social Support for Elderly During River Flood Disasters

Abstract

In natural disaster occurred in various areas, a large part of victims were accounted by the aged. In river flood disaster, the evacuation activities of these persons in early stage of flood can avoid the loss of lives. However, most of the elderly have physical handicaps in daily life, and cannot avoid many difficulties in evacuation activities in flood disaster. So if such elderly are given social support, they can evacuate. But some of the elderly have a tendency to isolate from a regional community. Therefore the support for them in flood disaster is an urgent problem. In this study, taking as a case of flood disaster in Koriyama on August 1998, the actual situation and problems of the evacuation activities of the elderly, and we examined what evacuation plan for the weak should be. As a result, most of the elderly could get social support of relatives and neighbors in flood disaster in Koriyama. But some elderly were negative about help seeking, because such elderly did not realize necessity of being helped or they hesitated to seek for social support.