Older rural areas lag behind in terms of earthquake resistance

An analysis by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper found that municipalities with older populations tend to have lower rates of earthquake-resistant housing.

Although the Great Hanshin Earthquake, which occurred 30 years ago, became a turning point in promoting seismic retrofitting, the analysis highlighted the growing gap between aging areas, depopulated areas and urban areas.

The earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1995 registered a magnitude of 7 on the Japanese seismic scale of 7 in the Kobe area. 6,434 people were killed and about 105,000 homes were destroyed.

According to data from Hyogo Prefecture, 72% of direct deaths were caused by suffocation or crushing, mainly in collapsing buildings.

Most of the destruction involved structures built before more stringent seismic standards were implemented in June 1981 to withstand earthquakes of magnitude 6 to 7.

The Building Seismic Retrofit Promotion Act took effect in 1995, increasing the rate of earthquake-resistant housing nationwide.

For detached houses and apartments, the rate rose from about 75 percent in 2003 to about 87 percent in 2018.

The Asahi Shimbun's analysis used earthquake resistance ratings for all 1,741 municipalities, which were first published by the Ministry of Infrastructure in November last year. The analysis also used data from the 2020 national census.

It found that the average aging rate, or percentage of people aged 65 and over, was 42.2% in 130 municipalities in 29 provinces where the earthquake resilience rate was less than 50%.

The national average aging rate is 28.6 percent.

Of these municipalities, 121 municipalities, or more than 90% of them, were completely depopulated.

The analysis also found that 204 municipalities in 29 provinces have earthquake resilience rates exceeding 90 percent. Many of these places were in urban areas.

The average aging rate in these municipalities was 25.5%, and only five of them were completely depopulated.

However, since urban areas have more buildings than rural areas, they also have a greater number of homes that lack sufficient earthquake resistance.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper estimates that at least 6.7 million homes across the country do not meet earthquake resistance standards, based on data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Housing and Land Survey as of October 2023.

“The analysis highlights that, compared to urban areas undergoing active redevelopment, rural areas suffer from the cost of seismic improvements, resulting in slower progress in improving seismic resistance,” said Hideki Edota, a professor of structural engineering at Nagoya Institute of Technology.

“To address regional disparities, it is necessary to promote affordable retrofitting methods and create systems that provide support to cover most of the cost,” he said.

Even areas hit by the earthquake

The housing rehabilitation rate in Awaji City in Hyogo Prefecture, located near the epicenter of the 1995 earthquake, was 77 percent as of fiscal year 2018, 10 percentage points lower than the national average.

As of February last year, the city's aging rate was 39.3 percent, 10 percentage points higher than the national average.

The city was formed by the merger of five cities following the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

In the former town of Hokudan, more than 90 percent of about 3,300 housing units were damaged in the quake, and 40 percent of homes were destroyed.

In Toshima Prefecture, a land reclamation project was implemented, and all 839 buildings were rebuilt.

But in other areas, many homes have been repaired rather than rebuilt.

This was also the case in the other four former cities, resulting in slow progress in seismic retrofit rates.

The Awaji City government increased its support for seismic retrofits to a maximum of 1.3 million yen ($8,400), but this did not motivate residents to strengthen their homes.

“The process of arranging contractors and applying for benefits is a daunting hurdle, especially for the elderly,” a city planning official said.

Focus on “proactive measures”

Seismic retrofitting is the foundation of all earthquake countermeasures, said Yoshiteru Murosaki, professor emeritus of disaster prevention planning at Kobe University.

“If houses do not collapse during an earthquake, residents will not be trapped and will be able to evacuate from the tsunami,” Murosaki said. “Fires can be extinguished to prevent the flames from spreading to surrounding areas.”

He also noted that residents can take shelter in their homes that are still standing, reducing overcrowding in evacuation centers.

“It is the starting point for all disaster preparedness efforts,” he said.

Murosaki said forecasts for a possible massive earthquake in the Nankai region estimate up to 320,000 deaths, 2.39 million buildings destroyed or demolished, and economic losses of up to 220 trillion yen.

Given the scale of this disaster, providing temporary housing for this large number of victims will be impossible.

“Providing disaster recovery payments to families whose homes were destroyed and covering the cost of temporary housing would be more expensive than enhancing seismic retrofit subsidies, which would reduce the number of collapsed homes,” Murosaki said.

He added that strengthening modernization efforts would save more lives and reduce the financial burden on the government.

(This article was written by Takashi Togo, Rikuri Kuroda, and Tatsuya Chikusa.)

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