On June 1, Prof. Shunji Murai, Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo,
Japan shared his first-hand insights of the disaster with an AIT
audience at a multimedia seminar titled "Lessons from the Recent
Catastrophic Earthquake and Tsunami in East Japan".
Prof. Murai revealed the epic scale of the catastrophe through an
in-depth presentation of photographs, video and satellite imagery that
compared before and after situations on the ground. He recounted the
awesome destructive power of the earthquake and tsunami with a wide
array of statistics and human testimonials.
According to Prof. Murai, as of April 29 the combined natural disasters
had left 14,575 dead and 11,324 missing. In the immediate aftermath
some 450,000 people were evacuated, and currently 128,555 are still
evacuated from their homes. All told, 219,555 houses were destroyed and
18,800 ships were lost. The tsunami flooded a total of 507 square
kilometers and 23,600 hectares of agricultural land.
The tsunami hit land at various locations between 15 minutes and 1 hour
after the earthquake and was actually a series of 7 waves that moved
across the ocean at 300km/hr and lasted 6 hours, he said. The power of
their inward “push” and outward “pull” on everything in their path was
unstoppable, he said. Moving across land at between 30 to 50km/hr, many
people had little chance to escape the wall of water, even those
driving in cars.
“Our civil engineering was not enough,” he told a large group of
scientists, engineers and students. The tsunamis easily destroyed the
world’s largest breakwater in Kamaishi Bay, he said, not to mention
countless public infrastructure, bridges, roads and highways.
Of the 300 kilometers of reinforced breakwater walls lining the coast
along the disaster area only one section, a 15-meter-high barrier at
Fudai village, held back the torrents of water and saved the town’s
citizens, he said.
At its apogee, the tsunami was 37.9 meters high on land and 6.6 meters
on the ocean. The raging water was even high enough to claim the lives
of people seeking protection on the fifth storey of a building in
Onagawa city, a coastal town that was completed devastated, he said.
“Up to 45 percent of people in these coastal areas did not survive,”
Prof. Murai said, citing the inadequacy of constantly changing public
warnings from the government as one contributing reason.
Local governments have learned some hard lessons, he told AIT. In
one sad irony, he described how people who went to a local disaster
prevention center 1.5 km from the coast died, while those who literally
ran for their lives lived. “Everyone should have their own disaster
survival strategy,” he said, claiming it is not enough to believe local
authorities’ disaster plans.
The key lesson learned from the breakwaters was that that it was better
to escape to high ground than to trust the physical barriers to stop
the water, or “hardware” as he called it. Despite being 10 to 12 meters
high in places, they failed to halt the tsunami. “Software”, which he
defined as on-the-ground communication systems that can transmit
accurate and fast information, offers much better protection to people
facing something like a tsunami, he argued.
Listening to local, practical-based knowledge and learning
the lessons of the past can save lives today, Prof. Murai
stressed. The case of Aneyoshi village, Miyako, Iwate
prefecture should inform disaster prevention
efforts. Remembering their ancestors' warnings of large
tsunamis, villagers moved their town upland to adjacent hills. On March
11 all village residents survived while the former location was
completely flooded.
“Japan is a disaster-prone country and a major catastrophe occurs every
generation,” he said, so government planners need to re-think their
work. A key suggestion was to relocate communities to higher ground,
away from at-risk coastal areas. To enable crucial facilities to escape
the highest surges of a tsunami, he recommended that engineers
construct public buildings like schools, hospitals, utilities, and
municipal buildings upward, starting from at least the 6th floor.
Highlighting the damage done to the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power
Station with a series of high resolution satellite images, Prof. Murai
claimed Japan was making a mistake in using nuclear power as a
sustainable alternative to its energy security. “Nothing is absolutely
safe” he said.
Reflecting on the chain reaction nature of the earthquake, tsunami and
nuclear disaster, Professor Murai issued a warning: “I would say that
natural and man-made disasters can be much bigger than we can imagine.
An event with a probability of one in a thousand years may occur
tomorrow anywhere and at any time.”
In a display of respect to those who lost their lives in the disaster,
AIT lecture-goers observed one minute of silence at the conclusion of
the seminar.
During his time at AIT as a seconded faculty member from the Government
of Japan from 1992-1995 and 1997-1999, Prof. Shunji Murai was
instrumental to the development of the Remote Sensing and Geographical
Information Systems field of study. He was welcomed back to AIT by Vice
President for Resource Development Prof. Worsak Kanok-Nakulchai, who
recounted Prof. Murai’s long list of academic and professional
accomplishments. Last year, Prof. Murai also served as a judge for the
final induction of 11 outstanding AIT alumni into the Hall of Fame,
along with HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn who was the inaugural
Hall of Fame inductee.
