In the afternoon of January 12, 2022, the award ceremony for the 5th Ishinomaki City Reconstruction and Disaster Risk Reduction Map Contest was held at Ishinomaki City Disaster Risk Reduction Center, Miyagi. Participating in the ceremony was Professor Takeshi Sato of IRIDeS, who chairs the Ishinomaki School Disaster Risk Reduction Promotion Committee. This year, the contest had a total of 97 entries from elementary and junior high schools in Ishinomaki City. At the award ceremony, the Ishinomaki...

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Associate Professor Daisuke Sugawara Tsunami Engineering Lab   In 1611, a major earthquake and tsunami struck the Pacific coast of Tohoku region. Until recent years, the size of the 1611 earthquake and tsunami was considered similar to that of the 1933 Sanriku Earthquake and Tsunami—a disaster that caused severe damages mainly along the Sanriku Coast of Iwate and Miyagi Prefectures. Thus, the 1611 disaster was named “Keicho Sanriku Earthquake and Tsunami.” Ho...

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▷Introduction   Schizophrenia is a life-altering mental disorder that affects about 1% of the population, and thus is an important issue that psychiatry has addressed. There are two aspects that contribute to schizophrenia: inherited genetic factors and acquired environmental factors. A disaster can also become an environmental facet in schizophrenia.   Dr. Mizuki Hino, an assistant professor at IRIDeS, focuses mainly on the biological aspects of schizophrenia, examining th...

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IRIDeS starts a new division system, as detailed below, in April 2021 towards more robust and flexible research and practical activities.     Risk Evaluation and Disaster Mitigation Research Division Conducts advanced research on disaster evaluation and response, both in Japan and abroad, through the integration of science and engineering.The activities of this division include field surveys of damage, various observations, numerical simulations of natural phenom...

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Making a copy of a stone monument (Photo provided by Japanese Disaster Culture Lab).   In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, IRIDeS cancelled or postponed several events that had been planned for the 10th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Field research activities of IRIDeS faculty members have also been severely restricted. On the other hand, IRIDeS members including executive committee members and disaster medicine experts held regular meetings to address inf...

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