「Relocations」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Day_105 : Relocations or Rebuildings (2)

 

http://disasters.weblike.jp/disasters/archives/2950

After the 1896 Meiji sanriku tsunami, many communities considered relocating to higher grounds, however, a few communities could proceed the relocations. The main reasons why they could not relocate to higher grounds are the followings (Nakasu et al., 2011):

1) It was very inconvenient for them to settle the areas which were far from the sea because they were mainly fishermen or living their daily lives by the sea.

2) Most of them were doing small size fishing related businesses, had not enough budgets to relocate.

3) There were difficulties to attain the agreements to do relocations among the community members.

4) They, community members, had conflicts with land owners to select and purchase the relocation lands.

5) There were technical limitations to create a land for living on the slope because Japan did not have enough technological level at that time.

They mainly relocated to higher grounds by their own decisions. However, some groups gave pressures on the people who had planned to move and tried to let them give up to do so because they would like to maintain the communities to recover.

A small number of the communities moved to higher grounds, however, some went back to their original places. In addition, their relatives or other village people started to live there. Some families positively accepted the immigrants from outsides to maintain their ownerships.

Finally, almost all communities had chosen to rebuild at the same places, so the risks were retained and this combined with the fact that they were re-affected by the 1933 Showa sanriku tsunami disaster.

Concerning after the 1933 Showa sanriku tsunami, this will be explained later.

Day_94 : Relocations or Rebuildings (1) (Tentative)

The communities in the Sanriku ria coast have been affected by tsunamis for a long time. After huge tsunami disasters, they have had always faced the difficulty to make a decision, relocations or rebuildings.
The below Figure 1 is the major tsunamis in the Sanriku ria coast.
sanriku tsunami history
Figure 1 Tsunami disasters in Sanriku ria coast (Cabinet office of Japan)
The Meiji sanriku tsunami in 1896 was the worst tsunami disaster ever in Japanese recorded history. The Showa sanriku tsunami in 1933 occurred in the midnight, however, they evacuated well because of the Meiji’s experience. As mentioned before, they always needed to choose relocations or rebuildings with the consideration of their resources after the tsunami disasters.
The decisions of each community can be seen in Table 1 (Tentative).
Table 1 Relocations or Rebuilding History of Communities after the Tsunami Disasters(Tentative Table: very rough translation, sorry. Will change soon)
                                                                                                      Ref. ( Nakasu,Tanaka, Miyake, 2011)
relocations2
Some communities relocated to higher grounds after the tsunamis, however, they tended to go back to the original places because of their daily life’s convenience. They are mostly fishermen or making their living by the sea. We can imagine how difficult for them to live in the ground, far from the sea.
To be continued.