The Lessons of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Its Effects on Japan’s Economy (Part 7)

Disaster Prevention and Regional Development in an Aging Society

Toshiaki Kouno
Senior Associate

June 10, 2011 (Friday)

More than 10,000 people lost their lives in the Great Tohoku Earthquake. When one looks at the list of casualties, the names of many elderly people (65 and older) are written therein. According to the totals of the Daily Yomiuri, of those casualties whose age is known, more than 65% were 60 years of age or older (Source: Daily Yomiuri homepage).

To begin with, the area which took devastating damage had many elderly people living in it. For example, 40% of the population of the towns of Ōtsuchi and Yamada in Iwate Prefecture was comprised by people over 60 years old, and 30% by elderly people (National Institute of Population and Social Security Research’s “Estimated Future Population of Japanese Municipalities” for 2010 (Dec, 2008)). A relatively large number of elderly people were victims of the disaster.

Table 1: Percentage of elderly citizens in municipalities which suffered large loss of life in the Great Tohoku Earthquake

Municipalities thought to have lost more than 100 people, in order of administrative region

Miyako City	30.0%
Ōfunato City	30.8%
Rikuzentakata City	34.0%
Kamaishi City	34.7%
Ōtsuchi Town	31.8%
Yamada Town	31.5%
Sendai City	18.7%
Ishinomaki City	27.1%
Shiogama City	27.1%
Kesennuma City	30.8%
Natori City	20.0%
Tagajō City	18.2%
Iwanuma City	19.3%
Higashi-Matsushima City	22.8%
Watari Town	22.8%
Yamamoto Town	31.7%
Shichigahama Town	21.3%
Onagawa Town	34.1%
Minami-Sanriku Town	29.6%
Iwaki City	24.9%
Sōma City	25.0%
Minami-Sōma City	26.7%
Shinchi Town	27.3%

Source: National Institute of Population and Social Security Research’s “Estimated Future Population of Japanese Municipalities” numbers for 2010 (Dec, 2008 estimates)

This is not the only instance of a natural disaster resulting in a large number of elderly victims. Of the 6402 people who died in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, 49.6% were elderly people. Furthermore, in addition to the special nursing home in Yamaguchi prefecture’s Hōfu which was hit directly by a mudslide caused by torrential rains in 2009, a care facility in Amami-ōshima was swallowed up by flowing mud when torrential rains hit in October of last year.

Why do the elderly become victims of disaster?

When one wonders why the elderly become victims of disaster, the reasons that immediately spring to mind are reduced physical strength and reduced independence. Hiroko Akiyama, a special-appointment professor at the University of Tokyo and a researcher in social gerontology, followed elderly people across Japan over a span of 20 years and investigated how their independence (functional health) changed. According to her study, only 10% of men were able to live independently until they passed away, approximately 20% of men began to lose independence around 65 (young-old), and the remaining 70% began to lose independence around 75 (old-old). There is also an underlying societal reason, i.e. that old age homes are often built in high risk disaster areas due to lower building costs.

When elderly people comprise such a large percentage of the population, it is difficult for the young people of the region or municipality to help them evacuate during a disaster. In February, 2010, a great earthquake hit Chile and tsunamis reached the Sanriku coast (stretching from Aomori prefecture to northern Miyagi prefecture). Even though there was almost an entire day between the earthquake and the arrival of the tsunamis, evacuating all the elderly was far from an easy task. In the case of the recent earthquake especially, when the time between the earthquake and the arrival of the tsunamis was so short, evacuating the elderly was all the more difficult, and the tragic result was that the firefighters and police officers who attempted to do so lost their lives in the line of duty.

The aging rate of the population of the disaster-hit area is the same as that of Japan in 2030 or China in 2050

The truth is that a demographic composition such as those of Ōtsuchi and Yamada, where elderly people make up 1/3 of the population, is exactly the same as that of the whole country in 20 years: it is estimated that elderly people will comprise 1/3 of Japan’s population in 2030. In anticipation of aging and its effects, many debates have evolved around medicine, sociology, and social security systems. However, it is not enough that the elderly be able to continue living full lives thanks to advances in medicine and enhanced pensions. It is important to consider how to build houses, neighborhoods, and communities, with robust disaster prevention measures, for the elderly in order to create a society in which the oldest-old can live in safety and comfort.

From the perspective of disaster prevention alone, it might seem like a good idea to simply have the elderly live on high ground and to build old age homes there as well. But old age homes and the residences of the elderly would become like gated cities and would cut off the ties between them and the rest of society.

Interpersonal relations, trust relations, and ties with society are collectively called social capital, which has been identified as having positive effects on regional economic development and regional health standards. Therefore, an important issue in future will be how to create a region with enhanced social capital for the elderly and young alike, while simultaneously securing elderly people’s safety against disasters. The idea of moving all old age homes in the disaster-afflicted area to high ground or building them in high-rise buildings has been proposed, but in that case we must devise a way to preserve the region’s unity using IT and secure some kind of mobility between the fishing base along the coast and the high ground, or else move all the young people to high ground as well.

Furthermore, the populations of South Korea and Singapore are also aging, and China’s One Child policy will also contribute to all of Eastern Asia eventually becoming a super-aging society. How Japan rebuilds the disaster-hit region around its super-aging society will act as a signpost for aging agricultural and fishing villages throughout Eastern Asia. This is one of the reasons that the countries of Eastern Asia are intently watching Japan’s rebuilding.