How Japan is arming itself against earthquakes through continuous improvements

Tokyo When the earth shook in Turkey, many skyscrapers became death traps. In Japan, they are refuges during earthquakes. One example is the 238-meter high-rise complex Roppongi Hills in Tokyo.

The office tower, which was built around 20 years ago, is intended to serve as an evacuation zone, supply station and power plant for the residents of the district in the event of an earthquake. The supports are made of steel tubes specially reinforced with concrete. 192 electronically controlled oil dampers stabilize the tower when strong tremors cause it to vibrate.

There is also a large gas-fired power plant in the building, which can supply electricity to the surrounding neighborhoods in the event of a power outage after an earthquake. And in a storage facility in the basement, there are enough emergency rations to feed and water about 10,000 people for three days.

This effort is a lesson from Japan’s history. 100 years ago, the earth in the Tokyo area shook with a force similar to that in Turkey. Since then, state-of-the-art technology has been used to make infrastructure such as skyscrapers, blocks of flats or small houses more and more earthquake-proof.

There is also an earthquake warning system. When the seismographs register a tremor, computers calculate the propagation of the ground waves and send an alarm to trains, companies and the smartphones of people in the affected regions. Trains and machines can then stop, people can crawl under tables and thus limit the damage. A catastrophe like the 1923 Kanto earthquake can happen again.

volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis

More than 100 active volcanoes are a daily reminder to the Japanese of the country’s geologically precarious situation. Japan is tectonically particularly active because four tectonic plates meet in the region: the Pacific, the North American, the Philippine and the Eurasian plates.

volcano in Japan

More than 100 active volcanoes are a daily reminder to the Japanese of the country’s geologically precarious situation.

(Photo: IMAGO/Kyodo News)

Every day the earth trembles somewhere in the country. A particularly strong earthquake occurred on March 11, 2011 off the sparsely populated north-east coast of Japan. At that time, the epicenter was in a deep-sea trench, 72 kilometers off the coast and 130 kilometers from Sendai, a city of over a million inhabitants.

Nevertheless, the earth shook in several places with a magnitude of seven – the maximum – on the Japanese earthquake scale, which measures the effects of an earthquake on the earth’s surface. This rating means that widespread devastation can occur and even earthquake-resistant concrete buildings can be severely damaged or destroyed.

Thanks to increasingly strict building codes, most buildings have withstood vibrations that in other countries alone would have led to catastrophes. As a result of the earthquake, an unexpectedly high tsunami struck the country shortly afterwards.

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This flooded the tsunami protective walls over a length of 350 kilometers, destroyed a number of small towns and villages and triggered a nuclear catastrophe in one of the largest nuclear power plants in the world, Fukushima Daiichi. More than 16,000 people lost their lives in the disasters.

Disaster Kaizen: Japan is continuously improving its infrastructure

After that, what happened after every major earthquake happened in Japan: disaster kaizen. Kaizen is the principle of eternal improvement. And so the country once again improved its earthquake preparedness. The state subsidizes the reconstruction of old blocks of flats along the main streets and strengthens the infrastructure.

Devastation after the 2011 tsunami.

A particularly strong seaquake occurred on March 11, 2011 off the sparsely populated north-east coast of Japan.

(Photo: imago stock&people)

For example, Tokyo’s historic main station, which survived both the Kanto earthquake and carpet bombing during World War II, was extensively renovated. More than 300 meters long, the building was lined with concrete slabs that rest on huge buffers and are stabilized by dampers.

This protective measure is also used in some cases for newly built residential and office high-rise buildings if the builders want to lure their customers with a particularly high level of earthquake safety. The pillars of the S-Bahn and U-Bahn were also reinforced with an additional layer of concrete and steel collars.

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On other stretches of coast, protective measures against tsunamis have been stepped up, for example by building protective towers in low-lying coastal settlements.

Massive investments in seismic safety

With more than 36 million inhabitants, the Tokyo metropolitan area is the largest city in the world. Previous simulations indicated that another major earthquake could kill more than 10,000 people and damage up to a quarter of Japan’s gross domestic product.

Tokyo main station

S-Bahn and U-Bahn pillars are provided with additional layers of concrete and steel jackets to make them more resilient.

(Photo: dpa)

New studies show that the number of victims can be reduced by 80 percent thanks to the many improvements that have been made in the country. The consequences of earthquakes in deep-sea trenches are also likely to be less than feared a few years ago. However, possible subsequent tsunamis continue to pose a great danger.

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When it comes to civil protection, the Japanese not only rely on technology, but also on the good preparation of every individual citizen. Rescue ladders on balconies and fire alarms in residential buildings are checked several times a year. Packing an emergency backpack is highly recommended. In addition, behavior in the event of an earthquake is practiced from kindergarten onwards.

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