Finding out Factors of Prolonged Water Supply Outage during the 2011 off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku Earthquake

Abstract

The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake caused water supply outage of 2.2 million households in 187 cities and towns. This earthquake provoked several aspects on earthquake-following natural and social events to the water supply system; the destructive tsunami damage, the water supply outage due to damage to the large transmission pipeline, the long-term electric power outage, the serious liquefaction damage, and the evacuation due to radioactivity leak of the nuclear power plant. The multi-factors made the water supply restoration be delayed even though the seismic ground motion was moderate. This study attempts to clarify these factors based on the water pipeline damage and restoration period.