[in Japanese]

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In natural disaster occurred in various areas, a large part of victims were accounted by the aged. In river flood disaster, the evacuation activities of these persons in early stage of flood can avoid the loss of lives. However, most of the elderly have physical handicaps in daily life, and cannot avoid many difficulties in evacuation activities in flood disaster. So if such elderly are given social support, they can evacuate. But some of the elderly have a tendency to isolate from a regional community. Therefore the support for them in flood disaster is an urgent problem. In this study, taking as a case of flood disaster in Koriyama on August 1998, the actual situation and problems of the evacuation activities of the elderly, and we examined what evacuation plan for the weak should be. As a result, most of the elderly could get social support of relatives and neighbors in flood disaster in Koriyama. But some elderly were negative about help seeking, because such elderly did not realize necessity of being helped or they hesitated to seek for social support.

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This is a comparative study of the angle of elevation, the burden on the neck and the proper distance to a sign for standing position and sitting in a wheelchair by experimental method. The results are as follows: 1) The angle of elevation for sitting in a wheelchair was larger than for the standing on the whole. 2) Sitting in a wheelchair made it less comfortable to see a sign than when standing if the sign was placed at 1.8 meter horizontal distance and 2.5 meter high or at 5.4 meter high and 2.5 meter high. 3) Sitting in a wheel chair made it more burdensome for one's neck to see a sign than when standing if the sign was placed at 1.8 meter horizontal distance and 2.5 meter high. There was no significant difference of burden to the neck between standing position and sitting in a wheelchair if sign was placed at 1.5 or 0.5 meter high. Some standards have specified that the bottom of sign should be 2.5 meter above ground in case of pathway width less than 2 meters because of walking safety. However from the standpoint of seeing sign when sitting in a wheelchair, it may be an unsuitable position.

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