The purpose of this study is to show the considerations in making a seismic hazard map for supporting citizen's disaster prevention measures. We collected existing seismic hazard maps compiled by local governments all over Japan. Following the risk management process in ISO 31000, we analyzed the information on disaster prevention measures in 181 of the maps in terms of each step (establishing the context, risk assessment, risk treatment, communication and consultation, and monitoring and review) and flow (core process) in the process.

As a resutl, the cosiderations in making a seismic hazard map for supporting citizen's disaster prevention measures are as follows: 1) showing the objectives of the map (what the local government created the map for), 2) showing the disaster prevention measures required according to the seismic intensity or damage level to be expected and the priority for the measures implementation, 3) including the device for promoting the communication and consultation among family (internal stakeholder) and with local residents (external stakeholder), 4) including the device for checking the status of disaster prevention measures, and 5) considering the order for accessing the information in accordance with the core process.

In this study, authors introduce the classes to induce evacuation behavior for land slide disaster in Okitsu elementary school in Kouchi prefecture, and analyze on the effect of the classes. The classes consist mainly of six parts, (1) understanding mechanism of land slide (2) understanding the current situation in Okitsu area by going to field work and using hazard map (3) understanding the limitation of hard measure (protective facility) (4) understanding the meaning of some warning signal announced by meteorological bureau (5) understanding the limitation of decision making to evacuate from disaster caused by psychological biases (6) experience to feel some dilemma using Cross-Road game. The results of analysis show that the classes had significant effects to raise pupils attitude toward evacuation behavior of land slide disaster.

Unbalanced media coverage could cause unbalanced support from outside to disaster-affected areas. This problem has been combated by an effort, separately either on a mass media's side, or on local residents' side, based on a binary split schema between information senders (mass media) and receivers (local people). However, despite some previous efforts, the same problem has arisen repeatedly. In this study, we aimed to solve this problem by creating a new collaborative and bi-directional relationship between mess media and local residents, based on the concept of “star disaster-affected area,” developed originally in Taiwan. Interviews with people involved and media reports in Taiwan have been conducted, regarding (1) the case of Shaolin Village and some nearby local communities, hit by the 2009 Morakot Typhoon, and (2) the case of Huashan Village, affected constantly by a series of landslide disasters after the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake. The results showed that people in disaster-stricken area made an active approach to mass media, to benefit from bright side of “star disaster-affected area,” such as more effective and timely support from outside, and to minimize dark side of it, such as troubles caused by overheated and inconsiderate interviews with disaster victims. It is suggested that a collaborative and close interaction among various stakeholders, in which media coverage of ongoing activities has been fully taken into account, could be one of the best solution toward the problem. Toward a betterment of disaster-related mass media reports after the 3.11 tragedy, it is also suggested that the concept of “star disaster-affected area” illuminates the importance of role change of media persons in disaster response and recovery: from an outside on-looker to an active inside player in the interaction.

The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake forced a reevaluation of the effectiveness of disaster management facilities and strategies in coastal communities where damage due to an earthquake and resulting tsunami from the Nankai Trough can be expected. Specific areas for reevaluation include (1) individual-level topics in disaster risk management, such as the use of motor vehicles to evacuate, (2) the safety of existing shelters, which came into question after government reappraisals, and (3) low tsunami evacuation rates in areas at high risk of tsunami damage, despite mandatory evacuation notices issued at the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake. This study discusses the impact of these factors on the consciousness of residents in a community where we performed action research, mainly on tsunami disaster management before 2011. Results of a questionnaire survey indicate that Okitsu residents have similar problems regarding tsunami evacuation as those revealed in the devastated areas of the Tohoku region. To promote disaster consciousness and improve tsunami evacuation rates, we suggest a new approach to evacuation drills called the single-person drill. This drill changes a community practice into an individual activity that we hope will make more residents involved in disaster risk management, and ultimately contribute to their successful tsunami evacuation.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the characteristics of accident scene of victims caused by recent heavy rainfall disaster in Japan. We have constructed database of victims by heavy rainfall disaster from 2004 to 2011 in Japan. 514 persons were killed by heavy rainfall disaster from 2004 to 2011. Latitude and longitude was estimated from address of accident scene. 1-km grid square statistics of national census in 2005 was used as data of the population. 1-km grid square digital national land information was used as data of the landform classification. 95.3% of the accident scenes were located in cell of rural area. Population of rural area is 46.3% of the total population of Japan. The accident scenes were unevenly distributed in rural area. 93.4% of the accident scenes were located in mountain or lowland. Victims in tableland were only 6.6%. Understanding for the topography information is important for the disaster prevention.

This paper chronologically examines, based on a mass-survey, that residents in Sendai City faced with difficulties regarding hospitals and clinics during a month after Great East Japan Earthquake occurred.

The survey collected data from residents who have been kept living within Sendai City after the quake, and who was not affected by Tsunami. The survey was implemented on Web basis.

The Results revealed that the rate of those who were not able to obtain information has been gradually decreasing, as time goes by after the quake. Those who have been regularly gone to hospitals or clinics prior to the quake are relatively more vulnerable rather than those who have not been regularly to medical facilities, since the former group had the larger probabilities to face with difficulties regarding hospitals and clinics. The rate of those who had anxiety for health condition has been gradually increasing. Although the rate does not significantly relate with difficulties regarding hospitals and clinics, it has significant relationship with anxiety for nuclear incidents.

The results indicate that information dissemination might reduce difficulties regarding hospitals and clinics. The survey illustrates that many residents did not have ideas where hospitals and clinics were operational. It needs to be avoided that many residents rush into disaster base hospitals and they prevent these hospitals from dealing with patients in the acute phase. Therefore, it might considerable that information should be disseminated with guidance that enables residents to know which medical facilities are in correspondent with specific symptoms and do no harm on the medical treatment in the acute phase.

Local Weather Information (LWI) is an approach to enhance weather risk awareness between producer and user of Weather Information. The LWI's concept is that residents share social reality of disaster risk from various weather information by using usual, plain and local expressions. In this paper, a case study is introduced around the Miya river in Ise city located in the middle of Mie Prefecture. Around this area, Junior high school students and local residents check and share the local past disasters, various weather information and LWI's function. Through this approach, the cooperations are intended to construct between school and community and between students and residents. As preliminary survey, cognition to disaster and efficacy of LWI are checked through a questionnaire survey in Tsujikuru located in this area. According to this survey's results, it shows that even the residents who had suffered from flood disasters in the past have not realized disaster risks before dangerous situation at an event of the 12th Typhoon in 2011. And the results about the efficacy of 4 patterns of LWIs shows increases of rate on actions related to evacuation from disaster in all 4 patterns. From these results, sharing LWIs in the community can drive early actions for prevention disaster, prevent tendency of waiting for more information and even soften resistance of evacuation. In the future, this LWI's approach will expect to connect cooperations among participants more strongly and to be available in community.

Approximately 19,000 people were sacrificed by tsunamis at the Great East Japan Earthquake. The Tohoku district has suffered huge damages by tsunamis many times in the past. Based on these experiences, there were lessons to survive from tsunamis in the Tohoku district. In this paper, we inspected the effect of these lessons at the Great East Japan Earthquake. We analyzed following two points. 1) How many residents could evacuate from tsunamis according to a lesson of the past? 2) Could residents who had evacuated according to lessons survived from tsunamis?

We analyzed about tsunami evacuation behaviors of tsunami victims and residents who had felt danger of the life by a tsunami. According to actual condition of evacuation behavior about tsunami victims, most of them had stayed their home at the earthquake occurrence and were attacked by tsunami there. According to actual condition of evacuation behavior about residents who had felt danger of the life by tsunamis, most of them had not evacuated immediately after the earthquake occurrence, and had not gone to shelters of higher ground directly.

As the result, we cleared that there were residents who had not taken appropriate tsunami evacuation behavior according to lessons of the past. Therefore, we infer that tsunami victims could reduce if most of residents should take appropriate tsunami evacuation behavior after the earthquake occurrence.