Abstract
Many historic civil engineering structures in eastern Japan were severely damaged by the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake and the resulting tsunami on March 11, 2011. The Japan Society of Civil Engineers' Committee on Historical Studies in Civil Engineering established a Special Subcommittee on the Tohoku Region Pacific Coast Earthquake, and in cooperation with the Agency for Cultural Affairs and other relevant organizations the Subcommittee conducted a survey on the situation of the damaged historic civil engineering structures.
This study was conducted in two stages: the primary survey and secondary survey. In the primary survey, a survey of the existence or absence of damage was conducted on 250 historic civil engineering structures that had been designated as “Important Cultural Property (structure),” a “Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure),” or a “Civil Engineering Heritage Recommended by the Japan Society of Civil Engineers.”In addition, based on the results of the primary survey, the top six in terms of priority of investigation were chosen from the affected historic civil engineering structures. In the secondary survey, a field survey as well as interviews with their administrators was carried out to determine their status. The results of those surveys provided an overall picture of the situation and the causes of the damage to the historic civil engineering structures affected by the Tohoku Earthquake.
Along with collating the results of a series of activities and investigations by the Subcommittee, this paper presents the findings, based on those results, on the conservation of historic civil engineering structures in the event of a disaster.
