The Effect of Lessons to Survive from Tsunamis; Actual Conditions at the Great East Japan Earthquake in Kamaishi City

Abstract

Approximately 19,000 people were sacrificed by tsunamis at the Great East Japan Earthquake. The Tohoku district has suffered huge damages by tsunamis many times in the past. Based on these experiences, there were lessons to survive from tsunamis in the Tohoku district. In this paper, we inspected the effect of these lessons at the Great East Japan Earthquake. We analyzed following two points. 1) How many residents could evacuate from tsunamis according to a lesson of the past? 2) Could residents who had evacuated according to lessons survived from tsunamis?

We analyzed about tsunami evacuation behaviors of tsunami victims and residents who had felt danger of the life by a tsunami. According to actual condition of evacuation behavior about tsunami victims, most of them had stayed their home at the earthquake occurrence and were attacked by tsunami there. According to actual condition of evacuation behavior about residents who had felt danger of the life by tsunamis, most of them had not evacuated immediately after the earthquake occurrence, and had not gone to shelters of higher ground directly.

As the result, we cleared that there were residents who had not taken appropriate tsunami evacuation behavior according to lessons of the past. Therefore, we infer that tsunami victims could reduce if most of residents should take appropriate tsunami evacuation behavior after the earthquake occurrence.