Estimation of the Current Risk to Human Damage Life Posed by Future Tsunamis in Japan

A method for tsunami risk assessment: a case study for Kamakura, Japan

“…The flood scenarios in this study are limited to Kamakura, but when considering the entire coastline of Sagami Bay, which includes multiple large cities, the consequence of such tsunami can be disastrous. For the scenarios simulated, the percentages of the estimated number of fatalities with respect to the exposed population are in line with the observed fatality proportions in the aftermath of the Tohoku event of 2011 (Yamao et al 2015). A large variation can be seen in the estimated number of casualties, depending on the scale of the tsunami.…”

“…Also, it is worth mentioning how there appears to be an empirical relationship between maximum tsunami height, minimum tsunami wave arrival time and potential risks to human life. Essentially, if residents have enough time to evacuate before defenses are overcome, they have a higher possibility of survival (Yamao et al 2015).…”

“…The North American Plate, Pacific Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate meet approximately 300 km away. There is also the Sagami Trough located just outside of the bay area, along with the Nankai Trough, which is also feared to have the potential to cause a large tsunami in the near future (Yamao et al 2015).…”

Tsunami awareness: a comparative assessment between Japan and the USA

“…21, where despite probably not having had much information about tsunamis, over half of respondents in Florida (66.5% of all) indicated that they knew how to evacuate. However, for the case of Kamakura, a high level of preparedness with respect to tsunamis appears to have only made residents aware of the complicated nature of evacuation in the area, as some of the possible tsunami scenarios indicate waves that could be of the order of 10m high and arrive within 30 minutes (Yamao et al, 2015). Against such scenarios, and given the nature of the propagation of the tsunami (Sittichai, 2007) in the town (with multiple rivers that can cut evacuation routes) higher awareness only appears to lead to a realization that there is no effective way to evacuate, explaining the answers in Fig.22.…”

Time-Scale in Framing Disaster Risk Reduction in Sustainability

“…The town of Otsuchi was particularly devastated by the 2011 event, with recorded inundation heights of 10-14 m and runups of around 25 m (Mori et al 2012). The initial wave arrived just 34 min after the earthquake (Yamao et al 2015), which explains the large numbers of casualties and the challenge that it represented from the long-term demographic sustainability of the town. Prior to the 2011 event, Otsuchi had a nominal population of around 16,000 people, and out of these 803 people died, 431 are still missing, and a further 50 lost their lives because of the indirect consequences of the tsunami (e.g.…”