13 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake / Reconsidering the use of cars in tsunami evacuation plans; Traffic jams are deadly, but some cannot escape on foot

Yomiuri Shimbuni Suzuki, right, and her husband use the car during evacuation drills in Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, on Sunday.

Yomiuri Shimbun

7:00 Japan time, March 7, 2024

This is the second installment of a series exploring the current reality in areas affected by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

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The city government of Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, conducted an evacuation drill on Sunday in light of a major tsunami warning.

Although city policy calls for evacuation on foot, about 30 elderly people living by the sea were evacuated by car that day and taken to higher ground in 14 vehicles.

Ine Suzuki, 70, took her 76-year-old husband, who has a disability in his left leg, in a car and arrived at the evacuation site on high ground about 600 meters away in about five minutes.

“If we walk, it may be too late to escape,” she said. “Considering what will happen after the evacuation, we will need a car.”

With the rapidly aging population in areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, an increasing number of vulnerable people are finding it difficult to evacuate.

Walking has been the rule of thumb to escape an impending tsunami. Evacuation by car is now a realistic option, although many people who used cars to try to evacuate in the 2011 disaster were killed by the tsunami.

When the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper asked the governments of 37 coastal municipalities in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in January and February about the pros and cons of evacuation by car, seven municipalities, including Yamamoto in Miyagi Prefecture, said they were “fully in favor” or were considering such a move. Option.

Meanwhile, 23 municipalities responded that they were “conditionally accepting” or considering such an option for the elderly and disabled only, and 17 municipalities included it as an evacuation option in their local disaster preparedness plans.

One reason evacuation by car is now an option is due to a map of areas at risk of tsunami inundation released by the government's Central Disaster Management Council in 2021. It assumes that the greatest tsunami damage is caused by a massive earthquake with the epicenter in or around the Japan Trench and Chishima Trench off the coast of Tohoku region.

In a worst-case scenario, tsunami waves up to 29.7 meters high would reach Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, killing about 20,000 people in the three prefectures, exceeding the death toll from the Great East Japan Earthquake.

The central government's master plan urges local governments to “consider evacuation by vehicle in accordance with local conditions,” such as when evacuation on foot is difficult.

According to a survey conducted by the National Police Agency, it was found that 91% of the 15,786 bodies autopsied in the disaster had died by drowning.

By age, 56% of the victims were 65 or older, indicating that many older people died because they were unable to evacuate from the tsunami.

It is estimated that people aged 75 years or older will constitute more than 20% of the population of the three governorates by 2030. Therefore, there is an urgent need to create a way to evacuate them to a safe place in a short period of time.

Traffic congestion is a problem. According to a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2012, nearly 60% of respondents were evacuated from coastal areas in the three provinces by car immediately after the earthquake. More than 30% of participants cited traffic congestion as a problem.

In Miyagi Prefecture, 575 bodies were found in cars in the disaster.

“The fact that there were victims of the tsunami disaster 13 years ago while stuck in a traffic jam is serious,” a disaster management official with the Kamaishi municipal government said.

The Noto Peninsula earthquake in January caused traffic jams in the northernmost area of ​​the peninsula, where a major tsunami warning was issued.

Company employee Seiichi Kitagawa, 56, who was at a supermarket in Suzu, Ishikawa Prefecture, when the quake struck, encountered a traffic jam of dozens of cars as he evacuated to higher ground, leaving his car on a crosswalk between the racing fields. About 10 minutes later the tsunami hit the supermarket.

“I had no choice but to use my car, but it was a risky choice,” he said.

At the same time, efforts are being made to prevent traffic congestion.

Higashi Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, plans to widen the road and create a parking lot for 200 cars as an evacuation site at a roadside rest area set to open in an area far from the coast.

In the Hanagama area of ​​Yamamoto Prefecture, residents are divided into groups of five or six families. In the event of an earthquake, they have to call each other and form carpools.

Makoto Okumura, a professor at the International Disaster Science Research Institute at Tohoku University, said it was necessary to increase the options available for evacuation methods.

“When considering whether to evacuate by car or not depending on local conditions, it is necessary to enhance the allocation of evacuation buildings and build towers that allow vertical evacuation in densely populated areas,” he said.

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