How to be disaster resilient
A Japanese example to keep life on rails after earthquakes and tsunamis.
The year started dramatically for the Japanese people, when a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 struck the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture. It was a reminder across the planet, that natural disasters show no mercy, hitting the beautiful country at the dawn of a new year. We don’t know exactly the extent of the damage yet, so far 68 people have been reported dead and others are injured or missing.
During the Tōhoku tsunami in 2011 with a magnitude of 8.9, the official total for the number of those confirmed dead or listed as missing from the disaster was about 18,500. What can we attribute this difference to?
Panayotis Alefragkis has correctly highlighted in his article today that Japan has had an Earthquake Early Warning system since 2007, which is constantly improving. Japan has spent about $1 billion to build the most advanced warning program, operating 4,235 seismographs across the country, which are automatically activated and alert citizens, authorities, and the media via mobile phone messages up to 80 seconds before an earthquake of more than 5 magnitude occurs.
This system uses a network of sensors to detect the initial, less damaging seismic waves and then predict the arrival of the more destructive waves (S-waves) that follow. It is obvious that the advances in internet of things, edge computing and artificial intelligence technology (and their convergence) give much better results in predictive analytics.
The day after the disaster
Should that be enough? In our book “2049 — A Manual for the Future of Humanity”, we present the example of Higashi Matsushima, a city rebuilt for resilience, which was deeply affected by the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. This catastrophic event, which shifted the Earth’s axis by 10 centimeters, forced the whole city to rethink its approach to urban planning to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
In Higashi Matsushima, they witnessed the evacuation of 15,000 people from their homes and the tragic loss of more than 1,100 lives. It took five months to restore electricity to the city and the community faced many challenges related to water, gas, food, and communication. Now a Disaster Museum serves as a stark reminder, but people acted to never experience anything like this again.
They realized that a reliable and resilient power supply was vital for essential services, as demonstrated during the 2011 disaster when the hospital had to rely on a generator for five days, resulting in limited patient care. This realization led to a wider change in mindset among citizens and planners across Japan. To comprehensively address these challenges, Higashi Matsushima initiated the development of a smart eco-city designed to be disaster resilient.
This eco-city has public housing designed to withstand disasters, but its real innovation lies in its energy infrastructure. The city generates electricity and runs its own microgrid system, using a battery to meet its needs in the event of a disaster for three days. In addition, Higashi Matsushima has demonstrated its commitment to sustainability and resilience by recycling and reusing 97% of the debris from the disaster, reusing it for rebuilding projects throughout the city.
Community-driven model
What makes Higashi Matsushima stand out is not only its energy management capabilities but also the collaborative efforts between citizens and municipal authorities to rebuild and recover. Unlike other eco-smart cities where real estate developers make decisions, Higashi Matsushima is unique in the approach taken by citizens. Local ownership and energy management empower the community to shape the direction of the city’s development.
If you want to read more stuff like this (in Greek), you can get the book here: https://keybooks.gr/product/2049/
