The Hindu : International : Japan to set up e-defence warning system

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2005

International

International

Japan to set up e-defence warning system

By Sujay Mehdudia

TOKYO, FEB. 7. Learning from experience in disaster management and reconstruction and more recently in the wake of the tsunami, the Japanese Government has initiated the process of setting up an e-defence system at Miki in the Hyogo Prefecture for warning people about impending tsunamis and earthquakes. The Prefecture has put in place a 3-D full-scale earthquake testing facility at Miki. It aims to increase readiness for tsunamis, draw up a programme for putting in place preparedness drills and a warning system. The Governor of the Prefecture, Mr. Toshizo Ido, said the facility could reproduce seismic movements and predict the movement of tsunamis and earthquakes and show the havoc they could wreak. The facility has a 40x40 feet pool with a 10-storey structure. By creating artificial seismic waves, it can show how houses are destroyed during an earthquake and the impact that it will have.

Experiments are now being conducted in the facility and a formal system would be announced only after this phase. The Asian Disaster Reduction Centre is assisting the authorities in this venture.

Teams from Japan had gone to the tsunami-hit areas of South-East Asia to assess the damage and suggest corrective measures. The results of the experiments would be made available to all the countries in the world, Mr. Ido said.

The Hyogo Prefecture is also taking the lead in developing a disaster reduction system, with the thrust on developing a new system for disaster information utilising digital broadcasting. Mr. Ido said that a three-step system for post-disaster management was also being established, with an emergency phase, an intermediate phase and a complete phase.

t has been proposed to set up a Secretariat for International Recovery Platform at the Kobe New Eastern City Centre as a one-stop service for international disaster recovery.

This would include four principal functions such as arrangement and adjustment, expert team despatch, research, surveys, information collection and human resource development.

At the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction held at Kobe in January, it was decided to form a working group on this issue at a meeting to be held at Geneva in May.

This programme would include cooperation with India, China, Taiwan and Turkey.

In the Hyogo Prefecture, people are being advised to use safe building materials for housing. Preparedness drills are being initiated in schools. Mr. Ido said that this was aimed at passing on the lessons learnt to the future generations to prevent disasters.

The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake hit Kobe in Hyogo on January 17, 1995.

The Prefecture is observing the 10th anniversary of this disaster that had claimed 6,433 lives and caused damage to the tune of about 10 trillion yen.

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