Characteristics of damage in recent natural disasters and initiatives aimed at mitigating damage
This paper introduces initiatives being undertaken by the Research Center for Disaster Risk Management of NILIM to develop technology designed to mitigate the damage caused by natural disasters. It (i) recalls the main disasters occurred in Japan in 2009, such as torrential rains, debris flow, typhoon and floods; then (ii) presents the issues these disasters highlighted, such as the importance of "soft" countermeasures - specifying the scope of hazards and making them publicly known - and controlling the use of land in hazardous areas, as well as giving warnings and encouraging early evacuation; and (iii) describes the advances in developing support technology aimed at improving crisis response capability to address catastrophic damage to urban and residential facilities due to earthquake such as the one that struck Haiti on January 13th this year.
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