Learning Disaster Management from Japan - A Reflection

さいがはわすれたころにやってくる 

saigai wa wasureta koro ni yatte kuru

A Japanese proverb above means disaster could happen and strike the population when they forget or ignore it (Kimura, 2012). As a country with the same characteristics, every time Indonesia and Japan are confronting many risks of disaster. Every year, many disastrous events had happened such as earthquake, tsunami, flood, landslide, volcano eruption, etc. One of the unforgettable events that hit Japan was The Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011 caused a thousand dead and lots of damages. Japanese scientists forecast that the event will reoccur with a bigger magnitude. That condition leads the country to prepare good disaster management.

In early November 2019, my campus conducted Student Exchange Program with the University of Kochi, Japan. I became one of the delegations with another seven students and a lecturer. The main aim of the program was to learn about disaster management. As I have learned, there are three phases of disaster cycle. The program focused to learn the pre-disaster phases that contained mitigation/prevention and preparedness. Many activities arranged within six days by the committee such as community discussion and simulation, tsunami tower visit, disaster lecture, hospital visit, and disaster workshop.

The first-day activity was joining the community discussion and simulation. It was held in a small village in the Kochi area. There, I discussed many necessary things to respond to the disaster. The activity was lead by Professor Sakiko Kanbarra. I also make a list of responses if there’s a disaster in a long paper called “Meguroll”. The community also did the simulation based on the case provided. The activity was ended by doing Barbeque sessions to facilitate community who couldn’t speak up during the formal discussion. After we did community discussion and simulation, the committee brought us into a tube shape shelter for Tsunami or known as Tsunami Tower. It is a tall big building to evacuate the community if disaster especially tsunami happens. The building was designed to accommodate around 400 people with three days of logistics. It is located in the coastal area of Kochi. Japan has many Tsunami Towers and I could find the tower  every 2 kilometers.

Making "Meguroll"

After doing simulation and preparing for barbeque session

The second day, I visited Kochi Health Center next to The University of Kochi. We learned the hospital’s disaster plan and preparation. We got rescue explained by the emergency staff of the hospital. They explained how to place the patients if there are massive victims, how to recruit and divide the medical and healthcare team and how to conduct disaster drills. After I listened to the presentation, the staff brought us to see one of their advance facilities to support disaster rescue. It was Doctor-Heli, a helicopter used to transport the patients or medical staff. It was supported by advance technology. The staff also explained the coordination in operating Doctor-Heli, “at least it needs the coordination between police and firefighter” they said.

Kochi Health Center

Doctor-Heli

The next day, the students were scheduled to join the class activity. There was a lecture by Kinoshita Sensei, and a presentation from Professor Sakiko Kanbarra’s Ph.D. students, Mr. Hastoro and Ms. Susila Paudel. Kinoshita Sensei presented her research in Aceh’s Tsunami 2004. She found that WASH (Water, Sanitary, and Hygiene) in Aceh was different and also worse compared to Japan because of many determinants. Then, Mr. Hastoro presented his research related to kader’s role in Semarang flood. And the last, Ms. Susila Paudell presented Nepali disaster management and introduced her project, a disaster app called EpiNurse. At the end of each presentation, we also discussed the topic.

I spent the last day of disaster management activity in Kochi Anshin Center. I joined Emergency Training for Woman, a disaster workshop that was participated by around 50 women from many backgrounds. This activity was held by the University of Kochi and Disaster Management Board of Kochi City. The workshop was guided by Professor Sakiko Kanbarra. Here, the committee gave some modules and task sheets to fill in including family identity and necessary things to bring in disaster. At the end of the session, we discuss the important things to bring with our group.

Emergency Training for Woman

It such a big opportunity for me to join the UGM and the University of Kochi exchange program. It has built my curiosity as well as opened my knowledge of managing the disaster. Here I thought that collaboration become more and more important in disaster management. I learned that there were various methods used for increasing community preparedness such as community discussion and workshop. Now I also understand why the Japanese could reduce the disaster impacts years by years.

During the visit, the committee was cooperative and kind. They provided all the accommodation and transportation during the activity. The agendas also ran on schedule and they did understand to the students. I didn’t find a meaningful bad situation except for the language barrier. I realized that it was difficult to find Japanese who could understand and able to speak English. Most of all activities were conduct in the Japanese language. It limited the interaction between students and other parts such as hospital staff and the community. Fortunately, technology has helped us even just a little. I could still understand some Japanese writing in modules or caution boards by using Google Translate.

From analyzing the visit, I could understand why the University of Kochi conducted community preparedness through community discussion, making “Meguroll”, and filling and listing the necessary things to bring in disaster. Based on research from George Washington University, the University of Southern California and the Cabarrus Health Alliance, individual involvement is becoming number two of the most effective technique to increase community preparedness after gap analysis (University of Southern California, 2020). It means that if we just educate the community without involving them in an activity, it will be less impactful.

I also learn that Japan is a country that has excellent mitigation and response plan in disaster. The government plays a very important role especially in funding the activities. From the past Great East Japan Earthquake, the government has increased the number of tsunami evacuation towers from 1.700 to 10.000 within three years (Pollmann, 2015). The existence of Doctor-Heli is very useful in a disaster situation. It could reach all the damaged areas. Research has shown that Doctor Heli operated effectively in transporting the victims in Kumamoto Earthquake 2016 (Motomura, et al., 2017). That could happen through good coordination from many sectors too. Japan also regularly does a disaster drill involving a multi-sector and community. There are laws and regulations made by the Government that ruled disaster drills specifically (The World Bank, 2016).

Based on the presentations from Kinosita Sensei, Mr. Hastoro and Ms. Susila Paudell, I found that there are many determinants of disaster response in every country including socioeconomic factors. In the discussion, I agree that Japan could provide better mitigation and preparedness on disaster compared to Indonesia and Nepal.

After passing the exchange program, I can conclude that Japan has an effective way to manage disasters by strengthening commitment, collaboration, and sustainability within the government and the community. It has changed the country’s value from forgetting the disaster to be more prepared. This value could be adopted in every country including Indonesia. As a personal duty, it becomes a big task for me and another delegations to implement what I’ve learned. By implementing that value, I believe that Indonesia will also be prepared in facing any kind of disaster. 

References :

Kimura, S. (2012). Lesson from the Great East Japan Earthquake: The Public Use of Antropological Knowledge. In Asian Anthropology (p. 65). The Chinese University Press.

Motomura, T., Matsumoto, H., Hirabayashi, A., Nakamura, M., Machida, H., Sato, T., . . . Takamori, M. (2017). Doctor-Heli Fleet Operations During the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake in Japan. Prehospital and Disaster Medicine.

Pollmann, M. (2015, March 18). 4 Years Later, What Japan Can Teach the World About Disaster Preparedness. Retrieved from The Diplomat: thediplomat.com/2015/03/4-years-later=what-japan-can-teach-the-world-about-disaster-preparedness/

The World Bank. (2016). Learning from Disaster Simulation Drills in Japan. Washington DC: The World Bank .

University of Southern California. (2020, February 19). 7 Techniques to Increase Community Emergency Preparedness. Retrieved from Keck School of Medicine of USC: mphdegree.usc.edu/blog/7-techniques-to-increase-community-emergency-preparedness/

 

p.s : this post is  actually was one of my writing assignments. I hope it can be useful and open our way of thinking :)