The year 2019 also saw the occurrence of natural disasters such as typhoons and earthquakes, including Typhoon 19 making landfall in Japan on October 12. The typhoon caused widespread damage, including human casualties, across a wide area that included the Miyagi Prefecture. The IRIDeS emergency survey working group (WG) started gathering information and carrying out surveys on October 11, and convened a meeting on October 15 to share its report with its stakeholders and the public. In addition, on December 14, on Tohoku Gakuin University Tsuchitoi campus, IRIDeS and the Tohoku branches of the Japan Organization of Civil Engineers, Japanese Geotechnical Society, and the Japan Landslide Society jointly held a debrief meeting regarding findings on Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures. Assoc. Prof. Shuji Moriguchi, the head of the emergency survey WG, says, “because there was widespread damage across a number of areas, we formed a survey group comprised of four organizations and carried out a multidisciplinary survey. Taking advantage of this cross-organizational framework, we would like to address disaster issues further, considering how to establish safe and resilient society.

Reports related to Typhoon 19 by IRIDeS researchers are available on the IRIDeS webpage (http://irides.tohoku.ac.jp/research/prompt_investigation/typhoon19-2019.html)(in Japanese).
Topics include flooding, landslides, evacuation, medical assistance, flood history and preserving historical materials.

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