"Chinese Guide" special report group
Several heavy rainstorms have been falling in western Japan, causing the worst floods in more than 30 years. The Japanese Police Department announced on July 14 that heavy rain in Western Japan has killed 209 people in 14 prefectures across Japan. We have always known that Japan is a shockproof country. In a major earthquake, there are not many casualties due to earthquakes. However, once we encounter water, we seem to have no choice but to rescue them. For example, during the 311 earthquake, most of the victims died in tsunamis rather than earthquakes. This time, the heavy rain disaster in Western Japan was raging due to the power of water in nature.
The first heavy rain "specific emergency disaster"
The Japanese government passed the cabinet meeting decision on designating the heavy rain in Western Japan as a "specific emergency disaster" on the 14th. The move aims to relieve residents who are unable to complete various administrative procedures due to disasters. Four earthquake disasters were previously designated, including the Hanshin Earthquake and the East Japan Earthquake, and it is the first time that it is suitable for "storm disasters". Prime Minister Abe Shinzo said at the emergency disaster response headquarters meeting held at the official residence: "Designation is made to protect the rights of disaster victims."
The central government is also promoting the designation procedures for "extremely serious disasters" to increase the national subsidy rate of local government post-disaster reconstruction projects, and plans to improve the support situation to the disaster areas as soon as possible. In addition, in order to quickly issue disaster certificates necessary when moving in temporary resettlement housing and receiving support funds for disaster victims' living reconstruction, the central government has stated that it will strengthen the dispatch of support personnel to affected local governments.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Japan, as of the morning of the 12th, due to the heavy rain, there were 519 sand and soil disasters in 31 prefectures in Japan, of which 382 were mountain collapses, 119 were mudslides, and 18 were landslides. Among them, there were 70 sand and soil disasters in Hiroshima Prefecture, which were the worst hit this time.
According to the Chinese Consulate General in Osaka on July 12, there are currently no reports of casualties from Chinese citizens. The Chinese Consulate General in Osaka sent the first batch of advance teams to Okayama Prefecture and Hiroshima Prefecture, which were severely affected, to visit the affected overseas Chinese and international students.
Embassy advance team members went to the scene to check the houses of overseas Chinese compatriots damaged by the heavy rain, and delivered the relief supplies and the warmth of their ancestors to the affected people. The affected overseas Chinese were deeply moved and said that this enhanced their courage and confidence to overcome the disaster.
reporter also learned that the emergency response team of the Chinese Consulate General in Osaka has taken measures such as coordinating disaster relief materials, transferring overseas Chinese in severely affected areas, and opening consular protection green channels to fully ensure the personal safety of Chinese citizens in the affected areas and do a good job in the aftermath.
Extremely heavy rainstorms caused geological disasters and river flooding from July 6 to 7, mainly in Japan, China and the four countries of Shiguo, and the disaster situation expanded. More than half of the victims were concentrated in the two prefectures of Hiroshima and Okayama . At least 62 people are still missing. This is the worst disaster since the Nagasaki flood that killed 299 people and disappeared in 1982.
Rainfall hits record floods
Japan has expectations for heavy rainstorms. According to statistics from the Japan Meteorological Agency, heavy rainstorms in Japan caused more than 10,000 buildings to be flooded due to river flooding and other reasons since 2004, have occurred 11 times in Japan.
Since the heavy rain alarm was issued on July 6, it has been a week since July 13, but there are still about 7,000 residents in the affected areas in the country, and the police are still conducting continuous searches for those who are missing. In the disaster areas where buildings collapsed and flooded one after another, the police, Self-Defense Forces, Fire Department and other departments sent more than 70,000 people to continue searching for the lost people and launching rescue activities in the scorching heat.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said it was designated as an extremely serious disaster. The three prefectures of Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Ehime and Okayama, which were the worst disasters caused by heavy rain in Western Japan, have caused a total of 254,084 households to be cut off, and more than half of the local governments are unable to restore water supply. It is estimated that for a long time, it will have an impact on the normal lives of citizens.
Media from Okayama Prefecture, one of the hardest-hit areas, said that this was mainly because the disaster was much more serious than originally thought, and the rainfall for three or four months was hit within a day.
In Okayama Prefecture, one of the hardest hit areas, there were three broken river embankments in a river in Kurashiki City. One third of this area was flooded, and thousands of people were once trapped on the roof, waiting for rescue by boats and helicopters. The Kurashiki city government estimates that about 4,600 houses were flooded, forcing 3,000 to 5,000 people to leave their homes to take refuge. Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it may take two weeks to drain the local water.
Age residents are not paying enough attention to it and fleeing
According to statistics from Asahi Shimbun as of July 12, among the 141 deceased who have confirmed their age, about 70% of the elderly over 60 years old account for about 100.
The Japanese government’s ineffective early warning and the public’s lack of awareness of flood prevention are another important reason for the serious disaster.
According to Japanese media reports, the Japanese meteorological department issued an alarm on July 5 that heavy rain may have serious impacts, but some people did not pay enough attention to this at the beginning. Many people still stay at home to take refuge as they are used to, so many people die from landslides and mudslides.
Local governments have issued "refuge notices" to approximately 6 million residents. However, the asylum notice is not mandatory and many people do not take it seriously. Everyone still responded according to previous experience. For example, no matter how powerful the flood was in the past, the water level would not exceed any position at most. Everyone responded according to this standard, but they did not expect that the flood level this time greatly exceeded the previous level, which led to an increase in the number of people affected.
The 80-year-old grandmother who took refuge in the City Yuan Primary School in Kurashiki City said that because she still remembered the situation where Odachuan broke the dam in the 1970s, she raised the height of her house floor in consideration of the situation where water could not exceed the floor. On July 6, she heard the shelter instructions broadcast, and the neighbors also asked her to take refuge together, but "I didn't expect that such a large amount of water would be emitted", so she did not go, and was trapped on the second floor of her home. She was finally rescued by a firefighter on a boat. She reflected and said, "I was too careless."
Although the disaster prevention education in Japanese schools runs through the entire education stage, disaster prevention drills are mainly focused on preventing earthquakes and fires, and are lacking in responding to floods, mudslides, etc. When heavy rain comes, people's personal awareness of disaster prevention is not as good as when earthquakes occur, which can be said to be a secret.
Although the Japanese authorities issued evacuation orders to about 6 million people at the worst time of the rain, these orders were only suggestions and no coercive force, and many people ignored them.
In addition, the population has dropped sharply and the aging is severe, which has weakened the local ability to deal with major natural disasters. Hiroshima Prefecture and Okayama Prefecture, which were hit hard this time, lacked personnel for emergency rescue and disaster relief when disasters occurred, and lacked talent for disaster prevention and mitigation using scientific and technological means. The lack of ability to prevent major natural disasters has further increased people's sense of insecurity, which has increasingly led to population movement to central cities, forming a vicious cycle.
earthquake-proof Japanese wooden houses are not strong when floods are encountered
According to statistics from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, as of the morning of July 12, due to the heavy rain, there were 519 sand and soil disasters in 31 prefectures in Japan, of which 382 were collapsed, 119 were mudslides, and 18 were landslides. Among them, there were 70 sand and soil disasters in Hiroshima Prefecture, which was the worst hit this time.
The heavy rainstorm in Japan was severe. The media analyzed the reasons. In addition to the typhoon attack and geological reasons, Japan often uses wood to build houses. The wooden houses cannot withstand the impact of water or mudslides, which may also be one of the reasons for heavy casualties.
Many houses in Japan are built with wood, especially in rural areas, where traditional wooden houses are very popular. The wooden foundation of this type of house is more elastic and is ideal for shockproof, but it cannot bear the huge pressure of floods or soil and rock flow. Once the mudslide with amazing impact surges into the house, it will directly sweep the top floor of the wooden house, and some wooden houses will even be uprooted along with the foundation.
In particular, a large number of bridges, reservoirs, dams, tunnels and public buildings in various parts of Japan were built during the period of rapid economic growth. It has been more than half a century so far, and the problem of aging has begun to occur, which needs to be renovated and updated urgently.
Hiroshima Prefecture, which was the most victims of this disaster, has seen the inclined surface soil layer in many places, and a mudslide disaster caused by large-scale landslides have been swept down, destroying or even burying residential houses. According to Japanese media reports, similar landslides caused by huge disasters occurred in northern Hiroshima City in 2014. Since then, Hiroshima City has begun to build a sand-proof dam, but due to its vast territory, it has not been completed before it can be completed, and a new disaster has occurred again.
ZTE Japan dispatched a disaster relief team to show love
When Western Japan was in a heavy rain and flood disaster, on July 10, under the leadership of Zhang Linfeng and Li Ming, a group of Chinese employees of ZTE Japan Co., Ltd. drove more than 700 kilometers overnight, and rushed to the Okayama disaster area overnight. As volunteers, they witnessed the difficulties of local disaster victims, and also devoted their strength to disaster relief.
It is understood that the administrative staff of ZTE Japan contacted the Okayama disaster area on July 10 and expressed their willingness to send some relief materials. The local disaster relief department said that what is currently lacking is not material but manpower. So ZTE held an emergency meeting in the afternoon and decided to form a team to rush to the disaster area on the same day. 11 people took two cars, three of whom were responsible for taking turns driving, and 8 people went to the site as volunteers and then started working. In the evening, everyone prepared rain boots, masks, bread and water, set off at 9 pm, and arrived in Gangshan County at 7 am the next morning.
After entering the disaster area of West Japan, along the way, I saw the scene of floods raging on both sides of the river. The car drifted on the railway, the telephone poles collapsed, the river bank collapsed, and the house was even more tilted.
ZTE team met with more than 100 volunteers who participated in the rescue on the same day in the local area, and the disaster relief command center arranged it uniformly. One of the victims needed a rescue team of 9 to 10 people, and the ZTE team had exactly 8 people, plus a Japanese volunteer arranged by the command center, drove to the victims' home together. There, it is very standardized to arrange volunteer work. Everyone must write down their name and contact information, and have their own name label on them.
ZTE team is responsible for a family living by the river. It is a two-story building. The first floor was once soaked in 1.6 meters of water, and the entire first floor was trapped in mud. There is an old lady and a couple with children at home. What the ZTE team needs to do is to move furniture, pianos, clothes, etc. that cannot be used on the first floor due to water soaking, to the side of the road outside, so that the disaster relief garbage truck can remove all the bulky garbage.
The furniture, piano, clothing, and books soaked in the rain are very heavy. The piano keyboard cannot be pressed because it is fixed by mud; the drawers of the cabinet cannot be opened normally, so they must be pried open with tools. This family has seven or eight large cabinets, all of which are solid wood. After soaking in water, it is extremely heavy. Every time everyone needs to use all their efforts to carry them. The tatami straw mat is also surprisingly heavy after soaking in water, and it takes 4-6 people to lift it. Soon everyone was sweating profusely and exhausted, but they still insisted, carrying the tatami and heavy furniture items in the mud to the side of the road one by one.
From noon, several people in the team felt like they were heatstroke, and some were even exhausted. According to the regulations of the disaster relief command center, you usually leave the victim's home at 2:30 and return to the command center at 3:00 pm. But considering that this family has many heavy objects and the family has old and young people, they are unable to carry them by themselves, so General Zhang Linfeng felt that he would start and end well, and still took everyone to carry them. He insisted until 4 pm, and the large heavy objects in the victim's home were cleaned before leaving.
President Li Ming told the Chinese Herald reporter that the most urgent task after the flood is to prevent bacteria from reproduction. When he entered that family, he smelled a strange smell. If he did not help them move out and clean it up, it might cause bacteria to reproduction. After their homework in the afternoon that day, the team drove back to Tokyo overnight and started working normally on the 12th.
witnessed the situation of the disaster area and the victims at the first time. Everyone truly felt the severity of the disaster. President Li Ming said that it felt that the blow to the victims was no less than that of the 311 earthquake.At that time, the tsunami washed away the house; this time, although the house in the disaster area of Gangshan was not washed away, the mess after the water also left the victims speechless. "It's harder than I thought, and it's really not easy for disaster victims." President Li Ming said that ZTE Japan will do its best to provide relief to disaster areas, fulfill its corporate social responsibilities, and contribute the love of the Chinese.
