Natural disasters in Japan

Japan is the country that is most affected by natural disasters mainly due to it being in the Ring of Fire. Two out of the five most expensive natural disasters in recent history have occurred in Japan, in 1995 and 2011, costing $181 billion. Japan has also been the site of some of the 10 worst natural disasters of the 21st century. Many types of natural disasters occur in Japan such as tsunamis, floods, typhoons, earthquakes, cyclones, and even volcanic eruptions. The country has gone through thousands of years of natural disasters, ^[1] affecting its economy, development, and social life. Some other major disasters in Japan were more recent, such as the January 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake and the March 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Volcanic eruptions

Volcano at Sakura-jima

Many volcanic eruptions have taken place in Japan.

List of major volcanic eruptions

Year	Volcano	Death toll [2] [3]	Note
1640	Hokkaido Komagatake	about 700
1707	Mount Fuji	None	Main article: Hōei eruption
1721	Mount Asama	15
1741	Oshima (Hokkaido)	1,467	Main article: 1741 eruption of Oshima–Ōshima and the Kampo tsunami
1779	Sakurajima	153
1783	Mount Asama	1,151	Main article: Tenmei eruption
1785	Aogashima	130～140
1792	Mount Unzen	about 15,000	Main article: 1792 Unzen earthquake and tsunami
1822	Mount Usu	103
1888	Mount Bandai	461〜477 [4]	Main article: 1888 eruption of Mount Bandai
1900	Mount Adatara	72
1902	Izu Torishima	125
1914	Sakurajima	58～59
1926	Mount Tokachi	144
1940	Miyakejima	11
1952	Bayonnaise Rocks	31
1958	Mount Aso	12
1991	Mount Unzen	43
2014	Mount Ontake	63	Main article: 2014 eruption of Mount Ontake

VEI-7 Volcanic eruptions

Mount Aso 4 pyroclastic flow and the spread of Aso 4 tephra. The pyroclastic flow reaches almost the whole area of Kyushu, and volcanic ash is deposited over 15 cm in a wide area from Kyushu to southern Hokkaido.

There are three VEI-7 volcanoes in Japan. These are the Aira Caldera, Kikai Caldera and Aso Caldera.

Mount Aso is the largest active volcano in Japan. Mount Aso had four eruptions 300,000 to 90,000 years ago. It emitted huge amounts of volcanic ash that covered all of Kyushu and up to Yamaguchi Prefecture.

VEI 7 eruptions have happened in the following locations of Japan.

Name	Zone	Location	Event / notes	Years ago before 1950 (Approx.)	Ejecta volume (Approx.)
Kikai Caldera		Japan, Ryukyu Islands	Akahoya eruption 5,300 BC	7,300 [5]	170 km3
Aira Caldera		Japan, Kyūshū	Aira-Tanzawa ash	30,000 [5]	450 km3
Aso Caldera		Japan, Kyūshū	Aso-4 pyroclastic flow	90,000	600 km3
Mount Aso		Japan, Kyūshū	Four large eruptions between 300,000 and 90,000 years ago.	300,000	600 km3

Earthquakes

Japan has had a long history of earthquake catastrophe and seismic activity. In the past twenty years, the most severe earthquake that occurred was the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Japan earthquake

After an earthquake

List of recent earthquakes in Japan

Main article: List of earthquakes in Japan

Location	Date	Estimated deaths
Hokkaido earthquake	1993, 12 July	202
Offshore Sanriku earthquake	1994, 28 December	3
Kobe earthquake	1995, 17 January	6,434
Ryukyu Islands earthquake	1998, 4 May	0
Geiyo earthquake	2001, 24 March	2
Hokkaido earthquake	2003, 26 September	1
Chuetsu earthquake	2004, 23 October	40
Fukuoka earthquake	2005, 20 March	1
Miyagi earthquake	2005, 16 August	0
Kuril Islands earthquake	2006, 15 November	0
Kuril Islands earthquake	2007, 13 January	0
Noto earthquake	2007, 25 March	1
Chuetsu Offshore earthquake	2007, 16 July	11
Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku earthquake	2008, 14 June	12
Izu Islands earthquake	2009, 9 August	0
Shizuoka earthquake	2009, 11 August	1
Ryukyu Islands earthquake	2010, 26 February	1
Bonin Islands earthquake	2010, 21 December	0
Tohoku earthquake	2011, 11 March	15,881
Miyagi earthquake aftershock	2011, 7 April	4
Fukushima earthquake	2011, 11 April	6
Fukushima earthquake aftershock	2011, 10 July	0
Izu Islands earthquake	2012, 1 January	0
Kamaishi earthquake	2012, 7 December	3
Chiba earthquake	2012, 14 March	1

Mudslides

A mudslide, or mudflow, occurs when rocks, sand, and earth are loosened and fall from hills and mountains due to earthquake, rain or snow. In Japan, over two-thirds of the land is mountainous and therefore prone to mudslides. ^[6]

Major mudslide events

Japan has experienced several major mudslide events, often due to other natural disasters.

Mount Ontake

On September 14, 1984, the Otaki earthquake (magnitude 6.8) in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, caused a major mudslide on the south face of Mount Ontake, which reached speeds of 80~100 km/h. ^[7]  Heavy rain over several days prior to the quake contributed to causing the mudslide, known as “Ontake Kuzure,” which took the lives of 29 people. After the disaster, barriers against mudslide were erected in nine locations at the foot of Mt. Ontake. ^[8]

Wakayama & Nara

In September 2011, Tropical Storm Talas (2011), which formed and was named on August 25, made landfall over Japan, bringing heavy rain to the mountainous Kii Peninsula, and causing a mudslide, called “Shinsohokai,” in Wakayama and Nara. "Shinsohokai" means that not only soil collapses, but also bedrock. In this case, houses were covered with earth and sand from the mudslide and there were many injured and killed. ^[9]

Hiroshima

In June 2010, Hiroshima experienced heavy rains which caused severe damage, including mudslides and river floods; Shōbara had 64 mm rain in an hour and Hiroshima had 30–50 mm on June 12, 20-40mm on the 13th and 20-50mm on the 14th. Five people were killed and six injured; 1,787 houses were destroyed. ^[10]

Floods

Floods and tsunamis are imbedded in Japanese culture and history. Southern parts of some regions are under sea level like Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa. Rising oceans are also making the Tokyo metropolitan area, home to 38 million people, vulnerable to storm surges. ^[11] Years of pumping up groundwater have caused some parts of the city to sink nearly 5 meters over the past century. This means that large parts of Tokyo are now below sea level and are only protected by outdated dikes. ^[12]

With a population of 127 million, the population density is very high. Most residential and industrial areas are located in low-lying areas, along rivers; these areas are very vulnerable to river flooding and flash floods. According to a 1985 study, 49 percent of the population and 75 percent of businesses are located in flood-prone areas. Given population growth in the Kanto Plain, where Japan's second-longest river, the Tone, is located, these shares are likely higher today. Water pushed to shore by strong winds or typhoons and coinciding with tide can cause significant sea level rise. These kinds of situations are then called a storm surge. In addition, precipitation is an increasing cause of flooding in Japan. ^[13]

Flood management

Flood management has been important in Japan for generations. The first form of flood management dates back to the 4th century when the Manda Levee (embankment) was built at the Yodo River. Here a narrow path runs along the old river near the inhabited areas. Today there is even a monument. ^[14] Japan has many large-scale projects to protect its inhabitants from the water. For example, there is a lot of emphasis on breaking high waves and a lot of research is being done into the behavior of tsunamis. ^[15] After the devastating tsunami of 2011, the Japanese government decided to protect all vulnerable villages and towns along the coast by building sea walls that range from 8.5 meters to 24 meters in height. As much as eleven billion is spent on building this 400-kilometer-long concrete wall. ^[16] Inland, flood management in Japan is also important against river flooding. Many of these projects are also recognizable to us. They are working on widening the river channels and building dikes. This is to limit the rise in a river's water level by increasing its cross-section and to prevent the land from flooding in times of flooding. They have drainage basins, which are used to temporarily store the overflow of the river during a flood and to drain it again after the risk of flooding has passed. This prevents the downstream water levels from rising. They also have pumping stations, here pumps are used to drain rainwater into the river in areas where the water level in the river is higher than the land. They also dredge in Japan. This is done to lower the water level in a river by deepening or dredging the river bed. Another important way of flood management is to create so-called shortcuts or shortcuts. The length of a river channel is shortened by straightening bends, so that flood water can flow through it quickly. And a flood management approach widely used by Japan is dams, such as the 186 meter high Kurobe Dam in Toyama. These dams are huge, so it often takes years to build them. The function of these dams is to regulate the water flow upstream at the time of a flood, so that the flow is reduced downstream. ^[17]

Heatwaves

Heatwaves have become increasingly common in Japan. June 2022 has seen the worst heatwave in 150 years. ^[18]

See also

• List of disasters in Japan by death toll

References

1. "Significant Earthquake: JAPAN". National Geophysical Data Center, part of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived from the original on January 26, 2016. Retrieved February 28, 2010.
2. "わが国の主な火山災害". www.bousai.go.jp. 内閣府 . Retrieved 2022-04-16.
3. "図録▽日本の主な火山被害". honkawa2.sakura.ne.jp. Retrieved 2022-04-16.
4. "過去に発生した火山災害". www.data.jma.go.jp. 気象庁 . Retrieved 2022-04-16.
5. Smith; et al. (2013). "Identification and correlation of visible tephras in the Lake Suigetsu SG06 sedimentary archive, Japan: chronostratigraphic markers for synchronising of east Asian/west Pacific palaeoclimatic records across the last 150 ka". Quaternary Science Reviews. 67: 121–137. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.01.026.
6. "Japan Institute of Country-ology and Engineering". www.jice.or.jp. JICE. 2007. Retrieved 2015-05-25.
7. "Naganoken Seibu Jishin (The earthquake which hit Nagano prefecture)". www.jma-net.go.jp. Matsuhiro Seismological Observatory. Archived from the original on 2015-10-01. Retrieved 2015-05-25.
8. 長野県土木部砂防課 (1995). "Naganoken Seibu Jishin (The earthquake which hit Nagano prefecture)". Sabo Gakkaishi. 48 (4): 66–68. doi:10.11475/sabo1973.48.4_66.
9. "Kii Peninsula mudslide flooding". www.asahi.com. Asahi Sinbun DIGITAL. Retrieved 2015-05-25.
10. "Hiroshima Crisis-Management Department Crisis-Management Division". BOUSAI. Retrieved 2015-05-25.
11. "Global Flood Map | World Wide Map of Potential Flooding". globalfloodmap.org. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
12. "How Tokyo is preparing for flooding" . The Independent. 2017-10-18. Archived from the original on 2022-06-18. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
13. "OECD Reviews of Risk Management Policies. Japan - OECD". www.oecd.org. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
14. "Jirej pamphlet".
15. Peters, Martijn (2018-10-30). "Japan, het voorbeeld van én voor het Nederland van morgen?". Medium. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
16. Visser, Jeroen (December 5, 2018). "In Japan verdwijnt het uitzicht op zee achter een tsunamimuur". Volkskrant Kijk Verder (in Dutch). Retrieved 2020-12-11.
17. "NARBO - Network of Asian River Basin Organizations". www.narbo.jp. Retrieved 2020-12-11.
18. "Japan swelters in hottest temperatures for 150 years as early heatwave hits Northern Hemisphere". Sky News. Retrieved 2022-06-29.

External links

• Recent natural disasters in Japan-日本では最近の自然災害