JP

Organization

Research Division

Risk Evaluation and Disaster Mitigation Research Division
Tsunami Engineering Lab
Assistant Professor
Ph.D.
Research Subject(s)
We research the victims in Miyagi Prefecture of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake using victim information provided by the Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters.
Key Words
Victim information / Oceanographic radar / GPS Buoy / Tsunami
Research Activities

The Great East Japan Earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011, caused 15,899 deaths, and 2,528 people were never found (NPA, 2020). So far, drowning has been the main cause of death in tsunami disasters. However, NPA(2012) reported causes of death other than drowning in the Great East Japan Earthquake include death due to fire, crush injuries, traumatic shock, other causes, and unknown causes.

We use victim data provided by Miyagi Prefecture Police Headquarters, which was aggregated from victim data from the Great East Japan Earthquake. First, we analyzed the causes of death due to the Great East Japan Earthquake in Miyagi Prefecture using the victim data. 

As a result of our analysis, the causes of death in Miyagi Prefecture during the Great East Japan Earthquake were classified into the following twelve categories: injuries to the head, injuries to the neck, injuries to the thorax, unspecified multiple injuries, traumatic shock, asphyxiation excluding drowning, drowning, death due to fire, hypothermia, heart disease, other, and death from an unknown cause.

Selected Works

Seto, S., & Imamura, F. (2020). Classification of tsunami deaths by modifying ICD-10 categories in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake tsunami-A case study in Miyagi prefecture. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 50, 101743.

Seto, S., Serikawa, T., Suppasri, A., & Imamura, F. (2019). Examining the relationship between the cause of death and the location of the deceased in the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami: A case study of Kesennuma in Miyagi prefecture. AGUFM, 2019, NH43E-0978.

Seto, S., Imamura, F., & Suppasri, A. (2019). Challenge to Build the Science of Human Survival from Disaster Starting from Analysis for the 2011 Tohoku Tsunami. Journal of Disaster Research, 14(9), 1323-1328.

Ogata, K., Seto, S., Fuji, R., Takahashi, T., & Hinata, H. (2018). Real-time tsunami detection with oceanographic radar based on virtual tsunami observation experiments. Remote Sensing, 10(7), 1126.

Selected Memberships
  • Japan Society of Civil Engineers
  • Japan Society for Natural Disaster Science
  • American Geophysical Union
Selected Awards
  • 2013 JSCE Coastal Engineering Encouragement Award