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See this article “Slow progress in Christchurch one year after quake.”
I cannot ever recall a major disaster after which citizens says the recovery is going too slowly. People are always impatient for things to go back to “normal.”
In an article titled Natural Disasters Influence Mental Mistakes, the site PychCentral provides a short account of a sessiion on Human Cognitive Performance Suffers Following National Disasters, delivered at the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society; February 2012.
The Society has provided an abstract: Human Factors article. Note that the sample size is quite small, but perhaps more research will be done on this topic in the future. Some excerpts from the news article follow:
A new study finds that survivors of natural disasters may experience intellectual challenges in addition to stress and anxiety. This mental decline may cause survivors to make serious errors in their daily lives.
Experts say attention to these phenomena is important given the prevalence of hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes.
The study on how cognitive performance can decline after earthquakes is published by New Zealand researchers in the journal Human Factors.
In the report, University of Canterbury’s William S. Helton and James Head discuss how prior studies have found that more traffic accidents and accident-related fatalities occur following human-made disasters such as the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Experts believe the mishaps are due to increased cognitive impairment that can lead to higher stress levels and an increase in intrusive thoughts. However, until this time, no research has been conducted on the effects of natural disasters on cognitive performance.
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An AP news article provides details about an ominous threat: Delhi ignores own quake peril warnings; January 25, 2012, Here is the lead in:
The ramshackle neighborhoods of northeast Delhi are home to 2.2 million people packed along narrow alleys. Buildings are made from a single layer of brick. Extra floors are added to dilapidated buildings not meant to handle their weight. Tangles of electrical cables hang precariously everywhere.
If a major earthquake were to strike India’s seismically vulnerable capital, these neighborhoods – India’s most crowded – would collapse into an apocalyptic nightmare. Waters from the nearby Yamuna River would turn the water-soaked subsoil to jelly, which would intensify the shaking.
The Indian government knows this and has done almost nothing about it.
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The Christchurch/Canterbury region has formed a new organization to lead its recovery efforts, namely the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority. Here are some details from the NZ press: Cera could emerge as star of Canty recovery . Some excerpts follow:
A Canterbury fixture for a few more years, Cera will be either the star of recovery or the target of an embittered public…It started with a handful of government department phone-ins and Civil Defence hangers-on, in a shabby office smelling of fresh paint, hammering out a plan to rebuild Christchurch. Now they are everywhere. They hold meetings with grumpy, earthquake-stricken residents and offer bus tours of devastated central Christchurch. They buy thousands of homes, order the demolition of 20-storeyed buildings and politely tell the public where they can and cannot go.
It easy to forget that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera) has existed for less than a year. Since the state of emergency was lifted after the February 22 quake, the authority has assumed the central role in Christchurch’s recovery.
The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act, passed in April, has given Cera and Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee unprecedented power. They can change laws, bypass courts, seize property and take over almost any responsibility normally left to local councils.
For those who want more information, here is the direct URL for CERA.
The closest analogy to this type of organization that I can think of in the U.S. is the use of an urban renewal authority, with eminent domain powers, to lead the recovery planning process. I would like to hear from folks in the U.S. how this approach would be greeted in their localities.
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Thanks to the Internet, I can find all sorts of interesting articles about disasters. This one deals with the physics of disasters, which for the most part is not something this social scientist understands very fully. But I was intrigued with some of the details of the article. Source is phsicstoday.org; December 2011. Insights from the great 2011 Japan earthquake.
One quote from the Lessons Learned section of the article:
The Tohoku-oki event confirmed the value of applying modern technologies to earthquake and tsunami mitigation efforts. Strain-accumulation measurements, offshore fault-zone observations, and early earthquake and tsunami warning systems all played a role in saving lives, as terrible as the event was. Extreme events can and do happen, and resources may be too limited to fully protect ourselves. Our best prospect for coping with those events’ effects, however, is to draw on our technologies, preparations, and ability to respond when Earth delivers the unexpected, as it did on 11 March 2011.
Predictably, scientists always wish they knew more and always are in hopes of finding more research money!
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This is quite an imaginative idea proposed by Japanese officials who are thinking ahead about recovery after a major earthquake in Tokyo. The UK Daily mail provided this article: Plan B: Japanese government unveils proposal for backup city in case earthquake cripples Tokyo. A short summary follows:
Concerned about the impact a crippling earthquake could have on Tokyo, the Japanese government has unveiled plans to develop an entire backup city in case.
Snappily called the IRTBBC – or Integrated Resort Tourism, Business and Backup City – the spare city will be built on a 1,236-acre site 300 miles west of the capital Tokyo.
It could be home to 50,000 residents and 200,000 workers and will also feature offices, resorts, casinos and parks – as well as essential government facilities in case of disaster.
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In an article titled Sobering alarm for cities on faultline; the Press (NZ), Nov. 2, 2011, describes some unusual geologic conditions and sounds and alarm for cities on faultlines. In the report, it quotes Erol Kalkan, manager of the United States Geological Survey’s national strong-motion network, said the February earthquake was “remarkable on several counts”. Some quotes from the report:
“The ground motion was much larger than previously recorded, the high intensity of shaking was greater than expected, particularly for a moderate-size earthquake, and the liquefaction-induced damage was extensive and severe within the central business district of Christchurch.
“Many urban areas are built over soft sediments and in valleys or over basins, for example the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles metropolitan. These are urban areas that sit atop geological features that may exaggerate or amplify ground motion, just as Christchurch experienced.
“The question is how to apply or account for such significant, higher-than-expected ground motions, as seen in Christchurch.” The Christchurch quake would have a long-lasting and significant impact on engineering practices and provided a huge opportunity to fuel scientific knowledge, Kalkan said.
GNS Science’s John Callan said the quantity and quality of data collected during the quake was “almost unprecedented internationally”. “Analysis of this data is already having a significant impact on seismology worldwide.”
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In an opinion piece in a NZ paper, the authors suggests that it is not possible to rebuild the Central Business District in Christchurch, NZ. The issues he raises should be pertinent to other communities facing rebuilding decisions.
CBD can’t be rebuilt – Bob Jones. Some of the essential information is as follows:
Prior to the earthquakes, Christchurch’s CBD retail heart was already in trouble, with empty shops abounding, while those remaining lived off the office workers, now gone. This was a direct consequence of the construction of large suburban shopping centres, which killed off the CBD as a retail location, just as has occurred in many other cities throughout the Western World. Examples in New Zealand include Lower Hutt and now, increasingly, Hamilton.
It would be possible to build a new, smaller Christchurch CBD with high-rise office buildings to support a smaller retail base, if the office buildings were confined to a tight area. But while that is physically possible, it is absolutely not financially feasible for several reasons.
A BBC news article on Sept. 21, 2011 cites a World Bank report about the duration of recovery in Japan:
According to the World Bank, Japan may need up to five years to rebuild from the disastrous earthquake and tsunami that has caused up to $235bn (£145bn) of damage, the World Bank said in a report.
It also estimates that 0.5 percentage points will be shaved from the country’s economic growth this year. However, it expects growth to pick up again in the second half of the year. The 11 March earthquake and tsunami, disrupted production networks in the automotive and electronic industries.
“Damage to housing and infrastructure has been unprecedented,” the World Bank said. “Growth should pick up through subsequent quarters as reconstruction efforts, which could last five years, accelerate,” it said. The bank estimates the damage to be between $123bn and $235bn. This is the equivalent of between 2.5% and 4% of the country’s economic output in 2010.
The World Bank stressed that it was too early to accurately assess the cost of the damage, but said it was likely to be greater than the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Potential costs of the disaster
March quake and tsunami Kobe earthquake 1995
I agree with the comment from Bill Cumming (noted below) that the time estimate seems understated, and that the response is likely to take decades. I have no ability to estimate costs, but it the duration of the recovery is understated chances are the costs are too.
One more thing: For those of you who are closely tracking the recovery process in Japan, I have uploaded the full text (43 pp) in English of the JAPAN_basic_guidelines_reconstruction_here. The source is Reconstruction Headquarters in Response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, a special operational unit of the Cabinet Secretariat.
Many thanks to fellow blogger Phil Palin for providing this information.
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Japan’s Way Back; Six months after the nightmare of 3/11, a resilient nation is rebuilding—and taking stock of a new era. Wall St. Journal, Sept. 10
A Japanese magazine recently declared that, after six decades, sengo Japan had been replaced by saigo Japan—that is, the postwar era had given way to the post-disaster era. Just as the country’s politics, economy and society had been transformed by the trauma and destruction of World War II, so now are its foundations being remade by the calamity of March 11, whose six-month anniversary falls this Sunday, just as Americans mark their own unhappy anniversary.
The comparison to World War II is an exaggeration. As colossal as the quake, tsunami and nuclear accident were, they don’t begin to match the scale of what the country faced in 1945. But a half year after the combined disasters—which have left, at last count, 15,780 confirmed dead and another 4,122 missing—Japan is still wrestling with the disruption and dislocation unleashed that day.
“Seven times down, eight times up,” is a popular Japanese expression for resilience after adversity. It is often symbolized by the round Daruma good-luck doll that bobs up after getting knocked down. On July 8—chosen for the date of 7/8—the Fukushima prefecture city of Koriyama held a Daruma festival to inspire the refugees from the surrounding area.
One more article re “civic paralysis” may be of interest. Recovery is very hard, if not impossible, for some small towns that are devastated. Sept. 12, 2011.
Recovery Diva 