IWATE, JAPAN : Japan's ability to quickly rise from the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami has provided a good lesson to its people that no technology can be better than a strong society in coping with natural disasters.
On March 11, a magnitude-9.0 earthquake triggered a massive tsunami that hit Japan's eastern region, killing 15,836 people, while 3,652 others were reported missing.
Japan takes pride in its ability to quickly return to normal life. The country recently shared its experiences of how its people coped with natural disasters with prospective young leaders from Asean countries, including Thailand which is now trying to recover from the flood disaster that hit the kingdom over the past few months.
Organised by the Japan Foundation with the support of the Foreign Affairs Ministry, a group of young people from the East Asian region spoke of a long disaster history, learning how to manage natural disasters and how to create a crisis-resilient society.
"We are all in the same boat. No country is spared by disasters," Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Kazuyuki Hamada said.
"After the 3/11 Great East Japan Earthquake, we have learned an important lesson that no prevention plans are perfect as we cannot control the power of nature."
He said nations in disaster areas must share their experiences so they could reduce the impact from the disasters and build a more resilient society because no one knows where the next catastrophe will take place.
He said Japan planned to host a conference to share its lessons from the 3/11 earthquake and a 3rd world conference on disaster reduction to discuss how to cope with natural disasters.
The March earthquake and tsunami severely damaged several cities including Kamaishi city in Iwate prefecture. The disaster left 884 dead, 184 missing and 9,883 homeless in that city alone.
Mamoru Yamada, director of Disaster Countermeasures in Kamaishi city, admitted that city disaster preparations were not good enough since its bay-mouth breakwater _ the world's largest tsunami protection measure _ was torn into pieces as the tsunami hit.
"At that time, I was rushing to a building rooftop only to see the city turn into a lake," he said.
Eight months after the tsunami, the city is now going through a recovery process. When asked for suggestions as to what Thailand should do to quickly recover from the flood, Mr Yamada said people had to rely more on themselves and depend less on the government.
The work in rebuilding the community damaged by the disaster should be done by the people as they were the ones who knew the problem best.
The government must listen to the people, support their plans and provide them with funding help, he said.
He said the recovery process for his city would take many years.
The work in removing 820,000 tonnes of rubble and about 3,000 damaged vehicles alone would take until 2014 to complete.
He said, however, it was a miracle that no schoolchildren were killed in the disaster because all of them ran 1.5 kilometres to a hill after they heard an alarm from the tsunami warning system.
To create a disaster-resilient community, disaster lessons and awareness must be taught from children to adults and from adults to community to reduce the damage and losses, Mr Yamada said.
The earthquake that hit Kobe city in 1995, claiming more than 6,000 lives, also provided lessons to Takatori East District Community, which was razed.
"Earthquakes are scary, but fires are worse," said Tadao Furuichi, head of Takatori East District Community.
"I saw many people stuck in ruins and burnt to death.
"One of them was my best friend."
He said that after the destruction, the residents joined hands to build a disaster-resilient community.
Several disaster prevention measures such as installing fire extinguishers, designating evacuation points and regular evacuation drills among residents were implemented.
More public parks were also built to serve as fire buffers.
He said residents had agreed to accept as their duty protecting their community from fire. Local people have been trained to reach a fire scene with fire extinguishers within four minutes while it takes seven minutes for firemen at the nearest station to reach the community after receiving a phone call.
"The three minutes' difference is enough to save lives. And if you do nothing, of course, the fire will spread," he said.
As a result, the Takatori East District Community has been selected as a model disaster-resilient community in Japan.
The reasons behind their success are the close cooperation among the residents and their thought and care about others, he said.
To promote a disaster-resilient community among young people, a course on environment and disaster mitigation was launched at Maiko High School in Kobe city after the 1995 earthquake.
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