Sendai, Japan (2011) Flashcards
Where was the earthquake’s epicenter and what magnitude was it?
Magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the north-west Pacific, east of Japan.
Root Causes:
High population density on the coast
Tectonically vulnerable
Very old population
Context:
HDI: 0.919
Little reliance on outside help for aid
Early warning systems in place
Strongly enforced building codes - extremely low levels of corruption
Disaster response day.
What boundary caused the earthquake?
The subduction zone between Pacific and Eurasian tectonic plates.
Environmental impacts:
Groundwater sources contaminated, destruction of coastal ecosystems.
Nuclear radiation released from Fukushima.
Social impacts:
16,000 deaths
3,000 missing, 6,000 injured.
Sendai airport became unusable, restricting accessibility to aid.
Transport infastructure damage limited supplying aid like medicine and food.
People’s homes were destoryed.
Economic impacts:
Over 250,000 buildings destroyed or damaged.
Economic losses of $300 billion.
Primary Impacts: (communication)
Landline telephone connections were immediately lost.
Electricity was also cut off, so mobile phones only had a certain amount of time they were useful for.
This made search and rescue efforts much harder.
Secondary Impacts: (illness)
Floodwater made areas damp, causing people to become cold, increasing the impacts of sicknesses like bronchitis, pneumonia and asthma.
Risk of flu passing between the elderly and the weak was huge.
Secondary Impacts: (Fukushima)
The Fukushima nuclear power station flooded and failed, risking a nuclear meltdown causing deadly pollution.
Immediate responses:
Search and resuce efforts.
Stabilising the power plant to prevent a meltdown.
110,000 troops mobilised within 24 hours.
Responses (illness)
Instead of administiring medicines, rescuers had to make sure people were washing their hands to prevent sicknesses like diarrhoea.
Restrcition to aid meant people suffering from bronchitis and pneumonia (needs antibiotics) and asthma (needs sprays and pumps) were struggling.
Hospitals were short of medicines and personnel.
Responses (housing)
452,000 people living in (inadequete) evacuation facilities, within 10 days of the earthquake. Damp, very cold conditions, not enough food provided.
Damage to transport made it hard to supply food and medicines - even with military help.
Responses (Fukushima)
50 workers voluntarily remained on site to cool down the system and prevent widespread radioactive leakage.
Higher than normal radiation levels were monitored as far away as Tokyo, but not dangerous levels. Only 10% of Chernobyl’s radioactive energy was released.
In the long term, the area was evacuated to avoid exposure to radioactivity.
