Tsunami Evacuation of Fishing Boat at Coastal Area in Iwate Prefecture

Abstract

On March 11, 2011, the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake occurred. After the earthquake, at coast in Iwate prefecture, same as other coastal area, fishermen evacuated to offshore area to protect themselves and their boats. We conducted survey to investigate the evacuation of fisheries in Iwate prefecture and consider whether they can get enough information about tsunami. The results of interview are (1) Evacuation ratio of boats is proportional to the boat size. (2) The depth of the areas boats evacuated to have a variation, and some of them are shallower than 50m. (3) Fishermen on small boats use cell-phone not radio communication system. However at 2011.3.11 cell phone lines were dead or jammed. (4) As boats smaller than about 3tonnage in Fudai and Tanohata, can't get the information of tsunami warning in some area, there is risk to fail to escape from tsunami.