IMPROVING TSUNAMI EVACUATION ROUTE SAFETY WITH CONCRETE BLOCK WALLS : INITIATIVES AND ISSUES

Abstract

 Safety inspections of concrete block walls in Tokushima City were conducted with the aim of improving the safety of tsunami evacuation routes. The results showed that there are 2,048 concrete block walls in the area, many of which would collapse in the event of an earthquake with a seismic intensity of 7 (on the Japanese scale), potentially blocking 6% of roads in the area. Meanwhile, there is little appetite for safety inspections of concrete block walls around citizen's homes, which may be partly due to concern about day-to-day relationships with neighbors. Future measures were considered using the ARCS model, and this made it possible to propose the following: (1) first, specify the routes for children going to and from school, and implement concrete block wall measures; (2) indicate low-cost block wall measures; (3) use virtual reality to allow people to experience the landscape that will be created taking into consideration the wall and the surrounding area.