Damage Estimation of Tokai Earthquake and the Development of New Countermeasures in Shizuoka Prefecture

On May 2001 Shizuoka prefecture announced the third estimation of disasters that could possibly be caused by Tokai Earthquake. Some social conditions have changed and earthquake resistance buildings have been developed since 1993 when the previous estimation was studied. 1, 400 billion yen, for example, has been invested to prepare against earthquake disasters. The new damage estimation methods were developed after studying the great Hanshin-Awaji (Kobe) earthquake, and this study contributed to improvement of methods to predict disasters.Ishibashi's model in 1976 and the Central Disaster Prevention Council model in 1978 were combined for the new estimation. The Western part of Shizuoka prefecture was predicted to be more intensive than in the previous estimation.Disasters caused by earthquakes depend on the time it occurrs. In the study disasters were estimated in 8 cases such as 5 am in the winter, noon in the spring or in the fall, and 6 pm in the winter. These cases also included whether people were notified in advance or not. As a result, it was discoverd that the worst disaster would ocurr at 5 am in the winter when most people were sleeping in their beds, the same as in the Kobe Earthquake. 5, 851 lives would be lost in the disaster.To further prepare for an earthquake, it is important to return to the basic concept of disaster countermeasures, to fix the target of countermeasure implementation, to announce the result of the estimation to the public, and to reflect the disaster scenario in local disaster countermeasure plans.