Abstract
Basic Knowledge on human behaviors under the circumstances of a large earthquake is of great importance to find out a better way of mitigating earthquake disasters, especially such serious calamity as loss of human lives and injuries.
For this purpose, by means of questionnaire and interview, a field survey was performed when the 1978 Izu-Oshima-Kinkai Earthquake attacked and then continued to a detailed one at the 1978 Miyagi-ken-oki Earthquake.
In this paper, using the data by the questionnaire survey, the relation between frequency in occurrence of various responses and the seismic intensity is investigated so as to disclose an average or general feature of human response during and after a large earthquake.
A major result obtained is a remarkable correlation of human responses to seismic intensities; when IJMA increases from III to VI, (i) Psychological responses such as fearfulness become severer and passive or unautonomic behaviors increase in number, (ii) Behaviors immediately after the end of a quake become active in order to cope with damage and to prepare against aftershocks, and (iii) Undesirable effects on daily life tend to be greater and last longer.
