Tohoku University researchers will study the deaths of 9,500 people in the 2011 tsunami to learn how to survive after being engulfed in a huge wave and to improve rescue and evacuation procedures.
“A tsunami is estimated to reach some coastal regions within only a few minutes following the long-anticipated huge earthquake along the Nankai Trough, meaning it will be difficult for residents in some communities to flee,” said Fumihiko Imamura, a tsunami engineering professor at the university’s International Research Institute of Disaster Science. “I will never give up and want to consider what is needed to survive a tsunami.”
Miyagi prefectural police are expected to provide detailed records from the medical examinations of 9,500 people killed in the tsunami triggered by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. The information will include sex, age, address, discovery site of body and cause of death.
The victims’ names will not be offered, and the university is considering deleting certain data if bereaved families do not want their loved ones’ information to be studied.
The university’s ethics committee is expected to soon announce the results of its review of the plan.
Around 90 percent of the 16,000 people killed in the earthquake and tsunami seven and a half years ago are believed to have drowned.
But a report by the Japanese Society of Legal Medicine has suggested many other contributing factors, including being struck by objects in the water, thoracic compression caused by water pressure, and hypothermia from prolonged submergence in cold water.
That means that people with the proper survival methods could avoid death even after being swept away in the waves.
The team, including Shuji Seto, an assistant professor of tsunami engineering at the institute, and Masato Funayama, a forensic medicine professor at the university’s School of Medicine, decided to ascertain the “process of deaths” of the 2011 victims.
Analysis of the discovery sites of corpses, the depth of the tsunami in certain locations, and the distribution of sediment could help in efforts to locate likely areas where victims can be found in future disasters.
Surveying the impact of drifting objects hitting people’s heads and chests may lead to the development of life jackets and safety headwear that could be worn during evacuations.
The team also intends to interview survivors in Ishinomaki’s Minamihama district in Miyagi Prefecture, where 400 residents were killed, to ascertain why some people survived and why so many others did not.
In addition, the team plans to ask Iwate and Fukushima prefectural police to provide data on tsunami victims in their prefectures.
(This article was written by Senior Staff Writer Hideaki Ishibashi and Issei Yamamoto.)