Table Of ContentMEGAQUAKE
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MEGAQUAKE
How Japan and the
World Should Respond
Tetsuo Takashima
Translated and edited by Robert D. Eldridge
POTOMAC BOOKS
An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press
© 2015 by Robert D. Eldridge and Tetsuo Takashima
Originally published by Shueisha Inc. as Kyodai
Jishin no Hi Inochi o Mamoru Tame no Hontō
no Koto © 2006 by Tetsuo Takashima
All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an
imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Takashima, Tetsuo, 1949–
[Kyodai jishin no hi. English]
Megaquake: how Japan and the world should
respond / Tetsuo Takashima; translated
and edited by Robert D. Eldridge.
pages cm
Translation of the author’s Kyodai jishin no hi.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61234-664-9 (cloth: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-61234-665-6 (pdf)
1. Disaster management—Japan.
2. Earthquakes—Japan. 3. Natural disasters—
Japan. 4. Economic assistance—Japan.
5. Technical assistance—Japan. I. Title.
HV551.5.J3T35 2014
363.34'9560952—dc23
2014037022
Set in Charis by Lindsey Auten.
Designed by N. Putens.
Contents
Translator’s Foreword vii
Introduction xxiii
1. A Megaquake in Tokyo 1
2. Problems That Will Emerge Following
a Megaquake 36
3. Trench-Type Megaquakes 60
4. Tsunamis 78
5. Disaster Prevention and Reduction 99
6. What the Government of Japan Is
Doing Now and Should Continue to
Do in the Future 122
Conclusion 147
Epilogue 151
Notes 163
Index 179
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Translator’s Foreword
I first met the author, Takashima Tetsuo, in May 2007. He and I
were speakers in a course taught at the Osaka University School of
International Public Policy (Ōsaka Daigaku Kokusai Kōkyō Seisaku
Kenkyūka). I had co-founded the course in the fall of 2001 with
a colleague, Professor Hoshino Toshiya, and Maj. Gen. Kasahara
Naoki of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force, or GSDF (Rikujō
Jieitai), the then director of the Osaka Provincial Liaison Office
(Ōsaka Chihō Renraku Honbu), which represents the interests of all
three services making up the Self-Defense Forces, or SDF (Jieitai) in
Osaka Prefecture.1 I did not know of Takashima at that point, other
than the fact that his novel, Midonaito iiguru (Midnight eagle)—
about the race to secure a tactical nuclear weapon that was loaded
on a Japan-based American stealth bomber that had crashed in the
Japan Alps in winter—had been turned into a movie earlier that
year. Since one of the main characters in the movie was a soldier in
the GSDF, my SDF counterparts, who arranged to invite Takashima
to the class, were particularly excited to welcome him.
The purpose of the pioneer course, known as the Workshop on
International Security, or WINS (Kokusai Anzen Hōshō Waakush-
oppu), was to have leading experts, government officials, and military
officers brief and discuss aspects of international or regional security
issues with graduate students and SDF personnel attending the gradu-
ate program of the National Defense Academy (Bōei Daigakkō).2
The course included a series of on-site visits—to a nuclear reactor
in Fukui Prefecture, the Disaster Reduction Museum (Hito to Mirai
Bōsai Sentaa) in Kobe, and various SDF bases and facilities—and it
concluded with a two- to three-day retreat to Camp Itami for all-day
vii
and all-night discussions leading up to a presentation based on a
certain scenario that often changed or evolved rapidly in order to
challenge the students (and to reflect real-world, real-time situa-
tions). Beginning in 2005, following the earthquake and tsunami
in Indonesia and South and Southeast Asia, we began looking more
and more at natural disasters, particularly domestic ones in Japan.
It was for this reason in particular that Takashima was invited.
Takashima has had an interesting career. He was born in 1949 in
Okayama Prefecture, between Kobe and Hiroshima. He still lives not
too far from Okayama, in Tarumi Ward, Kobe, in the very western
part of Japan’s fifth-largest city. After studying in the Engineering
Department of Keio University in Tokyo, he began working as a
researcher for the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (Nihon
Genshiryoku Kenkyū Kaihatsu Kikō), created in 1956. Subsequently he
moved to the United States, where he conducted further studies at the
University of California. Upon his return to Japan he began writing
while managing a private preparatory school. Merutodaun (Fallout: A
Novel) was his debut novel and won the 1994 Shōsetsu Gendai Mystery
Newcomer Award. Other novels include the action thriller Intruder,
which won the 1999 Suntory Mystery Award. Takashima has written
more than twenty novels in the action, thriller, suspense, mystery,
and juvenile fiction genres. His most recent book, among many other
projects, is a novel titled Shuto hōkai (Collapse of the capital), on
the worldwide economic consequences of an earthquake in Tokyo.
One of the many books Takashima has published is Kyodai jishin
no hi: Inochi o mamoru tame no hontō no koto (The day the large-scale
earthquake comes to Japan: What we all truly need to know to pre-
serve life), which is the original version of the translation you have
in your hands and which I have chosen to title Megaquake.3 Unlike
most of Takashima’s books, this one is not a novel, not fiction. It is
frighteningly real and is in part based on both extensive research
and his own experiences in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake
(which I also experienced as a first-year graduate student at the
Kobe University Graduate School of Law [Kōbe Daigaku Daigakuin
Hōgaku Kenkyūka]). That book was published in March 2006, five
years before a big earthquake—a true megaquake—and tsunami
viii TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD
struck the Pacific coast off of northeast Japan. That magnitude 9.0
(M9) earthquake is known as the Great East Japan Earthquake and
Tsunami (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai).
It was shortly after I returned from serving as the political adviser
to the Forward Command Element of the Marine Expeditionary
Brigade, which became the headquarters for forward-deployed U.S.
Forces Japan in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture—the heart of the disaster
area—that I contacted Takashima, with whom I had not been in
touch for some time.4I urged him to consider an English-language
version of his book, knowing that future disasters were very likely
and believing that it was necessary to share the insights of this
prolific and perceptive writer. I volunteered to be the translator.
I am not sure if Takashima was expecting to hear from me. We
had not exactly hit it off when he visited my class four years before.
For my part of the class I introduced the policy recommendations on
the use of U.S. forces in Japan in the event of a large-scale natural
disaster—essentially the formula by which we responded to the
March 11 disaster; I co-wrote these recommendations in a study with
Maj. Alfred J. Woodfin, a U.S. Marine foreign area officer who had
been studying in Japan and was affiliated with Osaka University’s
Center for International Security Studies and Policy (Kokusai Anzen
Hoshō Seisaku Kenkyū Sentaa).5 Takashima seemed to listen to my
presentation with some concern or discomfort, a body language
I had sensed from other people in the past who seemed to doubt
the need for U.S. forces to be involved. At the minimum he did not
openly embrace my recommendations.
The origin of that study and set of policy recommendations,
including the signing of a mutual assistance agreement in natural
disasters—in which the SDF would deploy to the United States or
its islands, including Guam, Saipan, and Hawaii, for humanitarian
assistance and disaster relief—was based on a conference I orga-
nized at Osaka University in January 2006 entitled “One Year after
the Tsunami.” The conference brought together a diverse group of
military officers, government officials, non-government organiza-
tions (NGOs), non-profit organizations (NPOs), and academics from
a half dozen countries connected to or interested in the response to
TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD ix
