The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami

Abstract

The Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011 can be characterized as a catastrophe. It inundated over 560 km2 of land, devastating a large number of coastal communities, causing over 19,000 casualties and huge economic damage in the Tohoku region. Due to the relatively high frequency of tsunamis, the region was considered well prepared against extreme coastal events. Yet the event of March 11 exceeded all previous expectations and overwhelmed the Japanese disaster protection system. This book constitutes a Dutch perspective to the Japanese tsunami disaster. Its main objective is to provide a comprehensive overview of the devastating events, their impact and the implications of this catastrophe for flood risk management in Japan, in the Netherlands, and ultimately worldwide. It is in fact the outcome of an effort to derive lessons for flood risk management based on the record of a natural disaster with a magnitude that has never been recorded before. First a brief chronicle of the events of March 11 2011 is presented, followed by the consequences and actions that took place in the aftermath of the disaster. Subsequently some insight into the damage and casualties is provided through the description of field observations in September 2011. Using this information the response of the Japanese flood countermeasures to the tsunami of March 2011 is analysed from a flood risk management perspective. The book continues with an overview of the recovery efforts, and it concludes with some future challenges for developments in disaster management, including the potential of Dutch-Japanese collaborations in the field of flood risk management.