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Disaster research predominantly focuses on citizens, not on migrants. This tilted spotlight needs to be readjusted, since many advanced countries around the world have become immigration countries, and safeguarding the lives of migrants at times of disaster has become an important and immediate policy issue. Hence, this research concentrates on disaster management to protect the lives of migrants in a disaster‐prone and de facto immigration country. The particular country and event in question are Japan and the northern Osaka earthquake of June 2018. More than 100 migrants who lived near the earthquake's epicentre rushed to an evacuation shelter managed by the local municipal government of Minoh City, Osaka Prefecture. While non‐governmental organisations attract more attention, this paper centres on a local government and demonstrates the key role that it can play in both bridging and building networks across different communities, and thus in safeguarding the lives of migrants at times of disaster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores two groups of factors, individual and institutional, that have influenced return migration since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan on 11 March 2011. Based on an analysis of statistical data on evacuees, a questionnaire completed by 289 people who migrated, and 19 semi‐structured interviews with disaster‐affected people, the research found (apropos of institutional factors) that while the lifting of the government's evacuation order has had no immediate effect on return decisions, the termination of monetary compensation and housing subsidies has had a significant bearing on them. As for individual factors, a strong sense of attachment to home and the possession of property, job obligations, and having family members in the home location are key determinants of return decisions. Moreover, the paper suggests that there could be differing opinions among Japanese government officials and evacuees regarding radiation exposure risk and the degree to which infrastructure and social services have been rehabilitated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural hazards have a potentially large impact on economic growth, but measuring their economic impact is subject to a great deal of uncertainty. The central objective of this paper is to demonstrate a model--the natural disasters vulnerability evaluation (NDVE) model--that can be used to evaluate the impact of natural hazards on gross national product growth. The model is based on five basic indicators--natural hazards growth rates (αi), the national natural hazards vulnerability rate (ΩT), the natural disaster devastation magnitude rate (π), the economic desgrowth rate (i.e. shrinkage of the economy) (δ), and the NHV surface. In addition, we apply the NDVE model to the north-east Japan earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 to evaluate its impact on the Japanese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-disaster governance is a popular discussion topic in disaster research, but in practice understanding of the issue is limited. This paper discusses recovery governance since the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, focusing on two dimensions: decentralisation and citizen participation in local governance. Regional Japan's socio-spatial vitality has been shrinking and weakening under the developmental state system. The 2011 disaster exposed vulnerabilities in the sociopolitical system. For a short time it appeared that local political space had been opened for alternative governance systems; however, only limited improvements have occurred in decentralisation reform and civic participation systems. Tsunami recovery was constrained and delayed by predisaster trajectories, although socio-spatial inequalities increased. The paper suggests the implications of this for the developmental state and argues that drastic action should be taken to rectify the faults of the socio-political system, to stop the disaster-affected area's decline, and to promote regional and community recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disaster recovery is a dynamic process of creating, maintaining, and changing the meaningful context of survivors. It is completed when they redevelop their self‐reliance and resume managing their social relations with a sense of community. This study employed action research to examine how researchers and survivors collaborated to change disaster recovery through the generative power of metaphor in a small village in Japan that experienced the Niigata–Chuetsu earthquake on 23 October 2004. It outlines long‐term collaborative practices as survivors undertook new activities owing to the power of the metaphor of 'school'. Once 'school' was adopted as the metaphor for where survivors learnt new skills and passed on traditional knowledge, they created new metaphors and performed new activities independently, which is critical for recovery as it demonstrates self‐reliance. The paper assesses the reasons why generative metaphors worked effectively in this case and highlights some academic and practical implications for disaster recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares recovery in the wake of three recent earthquakes: the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011; the Van earthquake in Turkey in October 2011; and the Maule earthquake in Chile in February 2010. The authors visited all three locations approximately 12-18 months after the incidents and interviewed earthquake specialists, disaster managers, urban planners, and local authorities. A key challenge to post-disaster recovery planning is balancing speed and deliberation. While affected communities must rebuild as quickly as possible, they must also seek to maximise the opportunities for improvement that disasters provide. The three case studies bring this dilemma into stark relief, as recovery was respectively slow, fast, and just right in the aftermath of the events: the Government of Japan adopted a deliberate approach to recovery and reconstruction; speed was of the essence in Turkey; and an effective balance between speed and deliberation was achieved in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a framework for assessing empirical patterns of urban disaster recovery through the use of statistical indicators. Such a framework is needed to develop systematic knowledge on how cities recover from disasters. The proposed framework addresses such issues as defining recovery, filtering out exogenous influences unrelated to the disaster, and making comparisons across disparate areas or events. It is applied to document how Kobe City, Japan, recovered from the catastrophic 1995 earthquake. Findings indicate that while aggregate population regained pre-disaster levels in ten years, population had shifted away from the older urban core. Economic recovery was characterised by a three to four year temporary boost in reconstruction activities, followed by settlement at a level some ten per cent below pre-disaster levels. Other long-term effects included substantial losses of port activity and sectoral shifts toward services and large businesses. These patterns of change and disparity generally accelerated pre-disaster trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study used the Disablement Process framework to examine how exposure to the great east Japan earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011 was related to elders' experiences of disability—that is, 'a gap between personal capability and environmental demand' (Verbrugge and Jette, 1994, p. 1). Data were derived from two waves (2009 and 2013) of the Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging, involving a representative sample of citizens aged 65 or more. Logistic regression was employed to model how the disaster was associated with the prevalence and incidence of disability. A significant relationship was documented between the two. Those impacted by the event exhibited greater odds of reporting a disability in 2013 and developing one between 2009 and 2013. Disasters destroy social infrastructure and disrupt daily life, widening the lacuna between the environment and personal resources. Given the increasing number of disasters, more policy attention should be directed to reducing their adverse consequences for health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, volunteers participated in the recovery of lost photographs. This effort—which we call the Picturescue Movement—subsequently began to organise photograph restoration gatherings. We conducted field research during the gatherings in Noda, one of the tsunami‐stricken areas. We have also carried out research on restoration gatherings in the city of Rikuzentakata. A comparison of findings across these two localities identifies two approaches to photograph restoration gatherings: 'aiming' and 'staying'. The aiming approach, employed in Rikuzentakata, emphasises returning photographs to their owners quickly, whereas the latter approach, used in Noda, is one in which volunteers stay with survivors for some time and encourage them to recall the past at their own pace. We conclude that the staying approach is more likely than the aiming approach to promote disaster recovery among survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how well disaster myths were rooted in Japanese people after the Great East Japan Disaster, as well as the effects of information sources on these misconceptions. Five common disaster myths are covered (panic, psychological shock, looting, increases in the crime rate, and material convergence), and information sources were divided into two types: public and private. Three hundred participants were asked how much credit they would give the five myths and which information sources they would rely on in post-disaster situations. The results found that, as in Western societies, these disaster myths do exist among Japanese people. Also, only public sources of disaster information, such as television and Internet news websites, had some effect on the degree of belief in disaster myths, while private sources, such as one's family, friends, and social networking sites, did not. Factors affecting the degree to which people believe in disaster myths are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the tremendous destruction wrought by catastrophes, social science holds few quantitative assessments of explanations for the rate of recovery. This article illuminates four factors-damage, population density, human capital, and economic capital-that are thought to explain the variation in the pace of population recovery following disaster; it also explores the popular but relatively untested factor of social capital. Using time-series, cross-sectional models and propensity score matching, it tests these approaches using new data from the rebuilding of 39 neighbourhoods in Tokyo after its 1923 earthquake. Social capital, more than earthquake damage, population density, human capital, or economic capital, best predicts population recovery in post-earthquake Tokyo. These findings suggest new approaches for research on social capital and disasters as well as public policy avenues for handling catastrophes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nine years after the Kobe earthquake in Japan, social issues are still prominent, and the rehabilitation process is still ongoing. The earthquake caused two major changes in Japanese society: an increase in voluntary and non-government activities, and the enhancement of cooperation between local government and the residents' association. People's participation in the decision-making process was a significant achievement. To sustain the efforts generated after the earthquake, the Kobe Action Plan was formulated and tested in different disaster scenarios. The current study suggests that civil societies in urban areas are sustainable if, first, the activities related to daily services are provided by the resident's associations; and second, these are linked to economic incentives. Leadership plays a crucial role in collective decision-making. Creation of the support system is essential for long-term sustainability of civil-society activities. These observations are exemplified in the case study in Nishi Suma, one of the worst-affected areas in the Kobe city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]