IRIDeS NEWs | International Research Institute of Disaster Science

2018.9.7

Studying Problems of Kitakukonnansha (People Who Had Difficulty Returning Home at the Time of Disaster) in Provincial Cities

At the time of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the kitakukonnansha (commuters stranded because of a disaster) in the Tokyo metropolitan area garnered attention. In metropolitan areas, paralysis of the transportation network had created several issues, as many people had to give up on returning home and stayed in temporary accommodations, or even had a great struggle to walk home for a long distance. At that time, the issue of kitakukonnansha arose not only in metropolitan cities but ...

2018.3.2

Elucidating the Post-Seismic Seafloor Deformation Following the 2011 Tohoku-oki Great Earthquake

Professor Motoyuki Kido of IRIDeS and his team are the first in the world to elucidate the complex movements of the seafloor after the Tohoku-oki great earthquake. On March 11, 2011, along the Japan Trench—deep in the off-Miyagi Pacific Ocean floor—the plates (bedrock covering the earth’s surface) began to move each other, causing a huge earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0. This earthquake, and the resulting tsunami, caused severe destruction, particularly in the Tohoku region. Exp...

2018.2.23

How to Utilize Uncertain Scientific Information to Mitigate Disaster: Exploration of “The Study Group for Countermeasures on the Forecast of Nankai Trough Earthquakes”

The “Nankai Trough” is a groove in the deep-ocean formed by plate subduction, which extends from off the coast of Shizuoka to off the coast of Miyazaki. In the vicinity of this area, large earthquakes have occurred quite frequently. Historically, there were cases in which Tonankai and Nankai earthqakes occurred consecutively, resulting in great disasters, such as the Ansei Earthquakes (1854) and Showa Earthquakes (1944 and 1946). In Japan, following the Great East Japan Earthquake, re-examinatio...

2017.12.1

We Held the First "World Bosai Forum"

What is the World Bosai Forum? In 2015, at the third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai, Japan, the "Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030" was adopted. Japan, who hosted this conference, is expected not only to develop domestic disaster risk reduction policies further but also to strengthen cooperation with the international community, being a strong leader in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disa...

2017.11.10

“World Tsunami Museum Conference” Held in Ishigaki

In December 2015, a general assembly of the United Nations created a “World Tsunami Awareness Day.” November 5, 2017 was the second such “World Tsunami Awareness Day,” and the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, with the cooperation of IRIDeS, sponsored a “World Tsunami Museum Conference” in the city of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture. The island of Ishigaki is thought to have bee...